Just Like Old Times
by tarysande
Summary: Garrus Vakarian's past and present, told through interconnected short stories one letter of the alphabet at a time.
1. Aliens

**ALIENS**

Garrus wasn't tired.

He wasn't tired _at all_, so he lay in the dark, glaring at the ceiling, resenting the light his mother had left burning in the hallway as if he were still a baby afraid of monsters. She just didn't _understand_. He was the big brother now, and big brothers weren't afraid of baby things like monsters or the dark. He knew there weren't any klixen in his closet, or Collectors under the bed. He kept telling her and telling her, but she only said things like, "You're still _my_ baby, dear one," and she _always_ left the stupid light on in the hallway.

All he wanted was to stay awake and see his dad—he didn't even _remember_ the last time his dad was home longer than a few days; Garrus felt like he hadn't seen him in a _million years_—but Dad's shuttle was late coming in, and Mom had put him to bed at the same time as the _baby_, before his dad even got home.

That stung. Early bedtime _and_ lights in the hall. It was like she didn't know anything at all.

He was still awake when he heard footsteps outside and knew they were too heavy to be his mother's. He almost jumped out of bed then and there, but he didn't want to get in trouble. Like a good boy, he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, but the door didn't creak open. The footsteps didn't come any closer, and after a minute he heard them walking away again.

Garrus curled his hands into fists, eyes still squeezed shut. When he opened them, it was dark. The light in the hall was off. He _knew_ he was supposed to stay in bed. He could imagine exactly what his dad would say if he found him up now.

Garrus got out of bed anyway, and slowly, carefully, quietly padded down the hallway, toward the light of the half-open door and the drifting sound of his parents' voices.

"—Still with the light, Niva? He's too old for that. You're coddling him."

Garrus bristled, but he knew then they'd get mad and make him go back to bed if he said anything, and at least this way he got to _hear_ his dad. Even if he had it all wrong.

"He's a child. Let him be a child. He won't be afraid of klixen in the shadows forever."

He bit down on his tongue to keep from yelling that he wasn't afraid of klixen in the shadows _now. _He wasn't afraid of _anything_. He was the _big brother. _He was _brave._

"It's not klixen he _needs_ to fear. We've enough real trouble. These… these _aliens_—"

Confused, Garrus took another step closer to the open door. He cringed when his foot scraped the bare floor, just loudly enough to make a sound he knew his parents had to hear. Holding his breath, he waited for them to scold him, but the lecture didn't come.

"The Council says it's over, Kaius."

He didn't know what they were talking about, but just for a second—a tiny second—he was almost scared. They sounded so _serious_. As serious as the time he fell out the window on the second floor and broke his arm. As serious as the time Solana got sick and they had to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night. _Serious_.

"Mark my words, Niva. Nothing good will come of this. They overstep themselves, and the entire galaxy will have to pay for their mistakes and their blunders. They're children playing with weapons they don't understand, and all their ammo is live. The last three months have been proof enough of that."

He expected his mother to raise her voice the way she did when Garrus did something he wasn't supposed to. Like climb the furniture or tease the baby. So he was surprised when she only laughed; a low, gentle sort of sound. Garrus peeked around the corner in time to see her lay a hand upon his father's crossed arms. He looked _mad._ Garrus hated when his dad looked mad. It made him want to squirm away and run back to his room. He didn't, though. Because he was the big brother, and he was brave. "We were all such children once, Kaius. Honest mistakes are no cause for the wanton destruction of an entire race. They're not the krogan."

His father scowled. "We don't know _what_ they are."

She sighed. "They're humans, and in spite of what nearly happened, we are not at war with them. If the Council's welcomed them, you'd best at least make the attempt, love. I suspect more than one stubborn fool will lose his place if he's not willing to change with the times." She coughed lightly, and then turned toward the door. Garrus froze. "Now, perhaps we've talked enough of that. I think your son would like a word."

"You're supposed to be sleeping," his dad said. Garrus didn't step backward, but he wanted to. His father's eyes were sharp, and missed nothing.

Before he could start mumbling apologies, his mother lied, "I told him he could wait up for you."

Garrus blinked at her, then shuffled forward.

"Stand up straight, son."

"I'm not afraid of the dark," Garrus said, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. "Just so you know. Sol is, but I'm _not._"

His father smiled at that, and, at least for a while, the aliens were forgotten.

#

Garrus seethed as Pallin strode away.

Seethed, and already knew damned well he wasn't going to let the executor's order halt his investigation. Officially, maybe. Unofficially was something else entirely. Pallin could scold him all he liked; Garrus _knew_ Saren was dirty. Hell, he was half-convinced Pallin was involved, somehow. Or in Saren's pocket. He heard rumors about the Spectre, and none of them good. Pallin thought _he_ played fast and loose with the rules?

But then, Garrus _wasn't_ a Spectre. And in a game where one side had regulations and the other didn't, he was pretty sure the side wrapped up in red tape was always going to lose. Saren could leave a trail of bodies a mile wide and all he had to do was say "Spectre authority" to make it all disappear.

Garrus needed some damned proof.

Exhaling sharply, he turned to leave, and only then noticed the trio of humans watching him. He knew human expressions well enough to guess they'd heard at least some of the argument. The male looked impatient. The darker woman standing beside him, uneasy.

The leader, though. She just looked _interested._

She seemed vaguely familiar, too, though he felt fairly certain he'd never met her before. He made a point of remembering faces, and hair her shade was uncommon enough to stand out, even if her military posture or the scar cutting across her left eyebrow weren't distinguishing features enough.

_Shepard. _The name came to him in a flash, because he'd overheard Pallin complaining earlier about a Commander Shepard digging around for information he didn't care to give. It had been accompanied by an irritated little diatribe about upstarts, with a side of obvious distaste for humans. One of the Alliance's best and brightest, Garrus knew; her face was familiar from the newsvids. She'd been given a Star of Terra, and those weren't handed out for nothing.

Fine. Pallin wanted to be an ass? Garrus could play that game too. If she was looking into Saren, maybe he could find an ally in her. The executor would _hate _it.

"Commander Shepard?" he said, noting the flicker of surprise as he greeted her by name. "Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren."

She arched an eyebrow as she replied, "Sounds like you really want to bring him down."

_She_ sounded like she really wanted to bring him down.

And just like that, he had a feeling they were going to get along fine.


	2. Bully

**BULLY**

His hand hurt.

Garrus didn't think it was actually broken; it wasn't as bad as his arm, the time he fell out the window. It ached, though, and every throb just made him madder. It wasn't _fair._ So maybe he hit the other kid too hard—_maybe_—but what else was he _supposed_ to do? Sol was _three_, and maybe Arctus wasn't as big as Garrus, but he was _twice_ Solana's size. Far as Garrus was concerned, Arctus had it coming.

But no, his mom showed up and pulled him off and gave him the _look_. The Garrus-Vakarian-you-are-in-so-much-trouble look. The I'm-going-to-have-to-tell-your-father-about-this look.

Garrus _hated_ that look. Especially since he hadn't done anything _wrong_. Not really.

He paced to one side of his room, turned, and stalked to the other. He wanted to kick something, but was pretty sure it would only end with his foot hurting as much as his hand.

His mother knocked once before letting herself in. The _look_ was gone, replaced by something even worse. Ducking his head, Garrus pretended to look at something on his desk, so he wouldn't have to see his mom's face. She didn't say anything, but he heard her cross the room, and the bed creaked as she sat down. After a moment, he took a deep breath and sat down next to her, head still bowed.

"Do you understand why I'm upset, Garrus?"

He thought about lying and saying _yes_, but something about the way she asked made him stop. She didn't sound angry, like she had when she'd sent him to his room in the first place, and she didn't sound disappointed the same way his dad did when he got into trouble. She just sounded sad. And he felt _bad_ about making his mom sad. "No."

"You can't take matters into your own hands the way you did."

This brought his chin up, and he clenched his hands, wincing as the action reminded him how sore it was. "He pushed Sol down because she wouldn't give him her toy."

She inclined her head slightly. "It was wrong of him, and I'm sure his mother will something to say about that."

"I was _protecting_ her."

Fresh rage welled up in him as he recounted the details—barreling into the garden just in time to see Arctus tugging Solana's mandible at an unnatural angle because _everyone knew_ that was the worst kind of pain, and then when Garrus yelled at him to stop, Arctus had just pushed Sol down. Hard. And then, yeah, Garrus stopped thinking and started hitting, because Sol was screaming and Arctus _deserved it_.

When he finished, his mom closed her eyes, and he heard the long, slow inhale of her breath. "And he should be punished, dear one. But it's not for you to do. You're not his parent."

"He's a bully."

When she opened her eyes and fixed him with a steady, amber gaze, he felt guilty all over again. Arctus' head _had_ made a very bad sound when it hit the ground, and _maybe_ he should have stopped when the younger kid started crying.

"So are you, when you stoop to his level, Garrus. The punishment has to fit the crime."

"I thought that's what I was doing," he protested. "I thought if he knew what it felt like—"

"Your sister has hurt feelings and a sore mandible. You gave him a _concussion_. That's not a fair exchange."

"I—" His gut twisted and he hunched, rounding his shoulders. "I'm sorry, Mom."

His mother took his sore hand in hers and stroked his fingers gently. "Hitting is a last resort, dear one, not the first step. Are we understood?"

Garrus nodded.

"Good. Then let me give you a hint. Show me your fist."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Your fist. Show me how you make a fist."

After another moment of hesitation—the words felt a bit like a trap, but it was his _mom_—he did as she asked, curling his fingers tight over his thumb. Her mandibles fluttered and she sighed. "There's your problem. You'll break your own hand, punching like that." She lifted her own hand, and formed a fist of her own, leaving the thumb outside the curl of her fingers. "Like this," she said. "Or, better, with the heel of your palm."

"Mom," he said, wonderingly. "How do you even _know_ that?"

"I'm your mother," she said, laughing. The laugh made him think maybe he might not be in as much trouble as he'd been afraid of. "And this is nothing. Wait until I show you what I can do with a rifle. I can outshoot your father. Blindfolded."

"Soon?" he asked hopefully.

Automatically, she repeated, "You're too young," her fingers tightening around his hand. He didn't pull away, even though it hurt.

"I'm _seven_."

She bent and pressed her forehead to his, and even though he was seven, he let himself lean into the nuzzle. "I know, dear one. Be seven. If you're anything like your father, you'll spend the rest of your life with a gun in your hands. Don't grow up faster than you have to."

He sighed, disappointed. Some of the other kids he knew were already learning to shoot. Stupid Renix Pollus never shut up about his dad taking him to the shooting range every weekend.

"Maybe we'll see about some hand-to-hand sparring," she offered, with a very faint smile. "Judging by what I saw, it looks like you're primed to have a mean right hook."

#

Being with C-Sec, Garrus had learned to read between the lines. A suspect was never going to just _give _you what you wanted, not if they thought they could get away with whatever it was they'd done. He'd learned (the hard way, of course; to hear his father tell it, Garrus always learned things the hard way) never to take what a perp did or said at face value.

It had taken longer to understand that victims weren't simple, either. Sometimes their testimony was muddled by fear or adrenaline or the passage of time. And it wasn't always fear of what _had_ happened or what had _almost_ happened, no. Throw an innocent into the morass of politics—gang politics, embassy politics, hell, C-Sec politics—on the Citadel, and it was no surprise they sometimes didn't want to talk—or admit everything they knew—for fear of repercussions from quarters they couldn't even begin to comprehend.

Dr. Michel, Garrus suspected, was one of these victims. Hell of a lot more going on than she ever admitted. He was pretty sure she wasn't entirely blameless, either, but her clinic did good work, and unless he found out she was running some kind of illicit slave trade or red sand ring alongside the cures she offered, he was happy to keep an eye out. And if _keeping an eye out_ sometimes meant _strongly reminding some thugs to walk elsewhere by pointing a gun in their direction_, so be it. It'd happened more than once. A gun could be a pretty potent motivator, even if it wasn't ever actually discharged.

So, he wasn't entirely surprised when one of his more reliable informants let slip that maybe the good doctor knew more than she ought to know about the same kinds of things Garrus himself was so keen on knowing, and maybe that knowledge might get her in trouble.

If Garrus had learned anything during this _particular_ investigation, it was that when Saren's name cropped up, so did a body count. And he liked Dr. Michel. Intel or no intel, he didn't want to see her added to the list of Saren Arterius' Spectre-authority victims.

He wasn't expecting to find her with a gun to her head so _literally_. And he wasn't expecting Commander Shepard to show up when she did, either. She was a good distraction, though. And Garrus had never been slow to take advantage of a distraction when one presented itself. He didn't pause—didn't think—he just lined the bastard up and pulled the trigger.

Felt good to actually take out some of the bastards who made the Citadel so damned ugly.

Good disappeared almost as quick as it came, though, since the moment the fight ended Shepard started dressing him down for taking the shot. It had been a beauty; if anything, he'd been expecting praise. He was torn between bristling at her tone and shame as he realized the slightest movement from either Fist's thug or Dr. Michel herself might've seen that perfect headshot end a different way.

C-Sec regs were pretty strict in hostage situations. Evidently the Alliance played by the same rules.

Maybe they had a point.

For one sinking moment, he wondered if his impulsive decision was going to undermine his objective, but then Shepard only sighed and said, "Welcome aboard, Garrus."

He fell in beside her as they left the clinic, but at the doorway she paused and turned a shrewd look his way. "Pull a move like that again on my squad, Vakarian, and you'll be out on your ass so fast you won't know what hit you." She stuck out her hand. A moment later, he raised his to accept the gesture, and he was pleasantly surprised by her firm grip.

Then, improbably, her lips quirked into a brief smile. "Damned fine shot, though. You as good with that rifle?"

"Better," he replied.

"Good," she said. "We'll keep a tally. Most clean headshots wins. Drinks are on the loser when we bring Saren down."

"Deal," he said, grinning. "But you should know I'm not a cheap drunk."

"Me either," she said with a smirk. "Better start saving your credits now."


	3. Citadel

**CITADEL**

The Citadel was _huge._

Cipritine was big. Garrus knew it was the capital, and Palaven's largest city. Even though they lived far outside the busiest sectors, Cipritine was home, and it was familiar. He was used to the skycars, and the busy shops, and the bustling crowds. He was used to the noise and the smell and the press of bodies all around. He was used to sticking close to his mom, or, on rarer occasions, his dad. If he got lost, he knew how to ask for directions.

The Citadel made Cipritine look _small. _And _quiet_.And this was only the _dock_. He'd always secretly believed his dad was exaggerating when he described things like the vastness of the ward skylines or the artificial blue skies or the number of different races he saw on a daily basis. Now Garrus thought his dad's stories hadn't done enough to prepare him for the reality. A line of skycars, most of them different models than the ones he was familiar with, waited to pick up passengers, and the crowds were dizzying. His nose twitched at the assault of unfamiliar scents.

Although their own transport had been filled only with other turians making the trip from Palaven to the Citadel, looking around, Garrus saw aliens everywhere. He'd seen a few asari before, but the stubby volus in its environmental suit was something new, and he didn't know _what_ to make of the pale creature standing a dozen feet away, whose fringe was too soft and too floppy and a very strange shade of red. It was one of the new aliens, the ones they'd almost gone to war with a few years back. Humans. Garrus couldn't help staring. It met his gaze. At first he thought it was very small, almost as small as the volus, but then a hand—a strange hand, a five-fingered hand like the asari—reached out and Garrus realized the little one with the red fringe was a child. It stared back at him before accepting the hand its parent offered and disappearing once more into the crowd.

Lucky. He wanted to leave, too. He wanted to explore. He wanted to see _everything_. He wanted to go to the Presidium and he wanted to go to the market and he wanted to see his dad's office and he wanted to meet a real Spectre.

He didn't think he _would_, but he wanted to. Stupid Renix Pollus had met a Spectre, and he talked about it all the time.

But Renix Pollus had never been to the Citadel. And Garrus was pretty sure Renix Pollus had never seen a real human. Everyone would be surprised and probably a bit disgusted when Garrus told them about the weird fringe and big eyes. Garrus figured humans were lucky the Council stepped in when they did. He didn't see how anything so squishy and breakable-looking could pose a real threat to the turians.

Garrus held tight to his sister's hand while their mother spoke briskly to the customs officer, handing over a datapad.

"Ow," Solana whimpered, tugging at his grip. Garrus only held her harder. It made his throat feel funny to imagine what might happen if he let go. She'd waddle off into the crowd and they'd probably never find her again. She was small and couldn't keep up with him and her constant questions drove him _crazy_, but he didn't want to lose her. "Ow, Gawwus."

"Garrus," he replied automatically, rolling the sound his sister's mouth was still too young and clumsy to make. "Say it right, Sol. You're not a baby. You're almost four."

"Ow," she repeated. "Le'go."

"No," he said. "Mom said you have to stay here and hold my hand."

"Wanna see Dad," she whined, leaning her whole slight body weight into trying to pull away from him. Garrus scowled, but whatever was keeping their mom didn't look to be ending any time soon. He could see how irritated she was even if he couldn't actually hear her words. The asari officer, indifferent, only pointed at something on the datapad. "Dad dad dad."

"Dad's not here," he explained. "He's at work. _Stop it_, Sol. I'm the boss and you have to listen to me. Mom said."

Her whine took on a higher pitch, wordless and shrill, and Garrus saw their mom throw a frantic look over her shoulder just in time for Solana to stop pulling and throw herself onto the ground. It shocked him enough that her hand slipped from his, and she was scrambling away before Garrus could do more than reach out and catch the hem of her tunic between his talons.

"Dad!" she cried.

Garrus looked up, and, sure enough, his father'd appeared from within the swarm of people. He looked important in his C-Sec uniform, with his fancy gun and a very serious expression. Garrus wouldn't want to be a bad guy on the Citadel, not if it meant having to face his dad. Even though there wasn't a lot of space, the crowd parted a bit for him, and he covered the distance quickly, bending to scoop Solana into his arms. "My girl," he said, as she nuzzled close, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I didn't mean to let go," Garrus said.

"The Citadel's a dangerous place to get lost," his dad said. "You have to be more careful."

Garrus bowed his head.

"Dad," crowed Solana, "we can go? 'M hungwy, Dad! Dad, we's on a _spaceship!_"

"Hung_ry_," Garrus muttered under his breath. "Hung_ry_, not _wy._ I didn't sound like that when _I_ was almost four."

Solana ignored him. So did his dad.

Garrus waited for someone to reach out and offer him a hand to hold, but his father's arms were full of babbling, squirming little girl, and when his mom returned from her battle with the customs officer, she was distracted and didn't notice him waiting. So he stared hard at their heels, ignoring the sights and sounds and smells all around him, following through the press of the crowd, his hands empty and clenched into fists at his sides.

#

The magnitude of what he was doing didn't sink in until Garrus stood in his little apartment, choosing between a recoil damper and a high caliber barrel for his rifle. He was packing because he was leaving. He was leaving because he was throwing his lot in with a virtual stranger for no greater reason than she believed what he believed: that Saren Arterius needed to be brought down.

It was crazy. Garrus was pretty sure at some point between Pallin demanding he quit the investigation and Shepard saying _welcome aboard_ in Dr. Michel's clinic, he'd lost his mind.

He wasn't cutting ties entirely. He planned to keep the apartment, and he hadn't completely quit—or been fired from—his position at C-Sec. The words _Spectre authority_ had worked in _his_ favor for a change, buying him a kind of nebulous, open-ended leave, though the way Pallin looked at him—_glared_ at Shepard—Garrus knew the executor would fight tooth and talon to keep him from slipping easily back into his place, when the time came. If the time came.

And just like that, he was stepping off a path he'd been dutifully walking for years.

Citadel Security didn't exactly have a place _off_ the Citadel.

And he _was_ leaving the Citadel. Cynicism added the words _possibly for good_ and also _about damned time. _He hadn't entirely thought through the ramifications of his actions when he declared his desire to join Commander Shepard on her mission, and then a number of things had happened in rapid succession: the krogan bounty hunter, the quarian with her damning information, Shepard's induction into the Spectres.

"Next up, Therum," Shepard had said, clapping a hand to his shoulder. Somehow it was an entirely different gesture when she did it; every time his dad did, Garrus fought the urge to cringe and say _what'd I do now?_ From Shepard it just seemed companionable. "Get your things, Vakarian. No idea when we'll be back."

So in three hours he'd be aboard a human ship commanded by the first human Spectre. He'd be pulling away from the place he'd called home for years. He didn't have the first idea what to expect.

His dad was going to kill him.

And still Garrus couldn't bring himself to regret his decision, no matter how rash. Instead of dreading what fresh set of rules and regs and loopholes would let the latest batch of bastard criminals go free, he felt… anticipation. He thought it was worth a little paternal disappointment—a lot of paternal disappointment—to feel _excitement_ again.

It was definitely worth some paternal disappointment to see Saren stopped.

After a moment, he tossed both mods into his open duffel. He'd let Shepard have the one he decided not to use, if she wanted it. Then he zipped the duffle shut, slung it over his shoulder, and left his apartment without once looking back.


	4. Damage

**DAMAGE**

He was in big trouble.

He was in _the biggest trouble_.

He was in so much trouble he didn't know where it even ranked on the scale of possible amounts of trouble. Probably somewhere right after _worst he'd ever been in._

Desperate plans formed in his head as he sat on the floor, surrounded by the evidence. He thought about hiding it, but he _knew_ his dad was going to notice, and he _knew _his dad was going to ask questions, and he _knew_ his dad _always_ got answers to the questions he asked. He'd already attempted to undo what he'd done, but he'd only succeeded in making things worse.

So. Much. Worse.

He could run. He wasn't sure how far he could get on the hundred-credit chit his grandmother'd sent for his birthday, but a hundred sounded like a lot. He might even be able to book a flight, like the one they'd taken to the Citadel.

He couldn't run to the Citadel, though. That was the _last_ place he wanted to be when his dad found out. He was pretty sure he'd have to leave turian space altogether, but he didn't know what else was out there for a kid with a hundred credits, even if he was going to be eight in two days.

Well. Not a hundred. The flight would cost something. Fifty, probably. But fifty would last a while. He didn't think it would buy a house, or anything, but it'd keep him in food, and if he went to a warm planet he could just sleep outside, but he'd have to get some kind of job or something and he could be a merc if only his mom had let him learn to shoot a gun and—

His panicked plans were halted by his mother's exasperated exclamation of, "Garrus Vakarian, _what have you done_?"

For one second, he thought about blaming his sister. She was littler, and Dad was never as hard on her. It wasn't fair, though. Solana hadn't done anything. In fact, when she toddled in and tried to help—if banging tools on the ground was _helping_—he'd sent her away again. He bowed his head.

"Your father's—"

"Going to kill me," Garrus finished for her. Morosely. And with certainty.

"—Going to be very upset," she said, shaking her head. "Oh, Garrus, what were you _thinking_?"

She crouched down beside him, reaching out to poke one of the disassembled pieces of the ancient comm box that had belonged to some grandfather several generations back. Three, he thought. Or maybe four.

"I thought I could fix it," he admitted. "I was watching these vids, and they made it look so easy, and I thought he'd be proud, and maybe then he'd think I was old enough to start learning how to use a gun, like his."

"Spirits help me, you and your _guns_," she muttered, almost under her breath, but he could still hear every word. A moment later, she lifted two of the fragments held them aloft, turning them as if turning them might somehow make them fit back together properly. Garrus could've told her it wouldn't help. He'd been turning all the pieces every which way for an hour and none of it made any sense. It was like every time he put one down it turned into three more. "Of all the things to take apart… and with him home any minute."

"I know," Garrus said miserably.

When Garrus looked up at her, he didn't see anger, or even the frustration he expected. Her mandibles were pulled tight to her cheeks, and her brow plates lowered. "Dear one, he _is_ proud of you."

Garrus shrugged. It was nice of her to say—it was such a _mom_ thing for her to say—but he was always _not quite_ right. Not quite quick enough or clever enough; always asking too many questions and refusing to do what he was told just because he'd been told to do it.

Breaking cherished family heirlooms because he'd been stupid enough to think he could just do something _big_ and right and _special_ for a change.

His mom sighed, and began gathering the pieces of the comm together. "Here's what's going to happen," she said, so calmly Garrus couldn't help but listen, because any plan was better than _run away to a different planet_. "I'm going to put this back in some manner that will make do if your father doesn't look too closely at it. You _are_ going to tell him the truth and deal with the consequences, but not until after your birthday. I won't see that ruined over this." She glanced down at her hands, and their broken burden. "Where did you get this power cell?"

"…I borrowed it from one of my toys. Well. Solana's toy. But it used to be mine."

She grimaced, but the tilt of her head was curious. "And the idea to use a converter?"

Again Garrus shrugged. "I know the comm box is old. I figured… I don't know. I thought it wouldn't work with the new power if I didn't find a way to change the input."

"Will you show me, later? What you did? On something actually fixable?"

"Sure," Garrus said, squirming under the openness of her gaze. "If you want."

Flashing him a brief smile, she said, "You'll dull my plates before their time, dear one, but _I_ am proud of you. I hope you know that."

He ducked his head. "Okay."

"You're also going to be on kitchen duty for three weeks, on top of whatever punishment your father deems appropriate."

"Okay," he repeated, thinking he'd hold on to the hundred credits after all. If his dad didn't actually kill him, maybe he could use it to buy new tools. He could probably build something _really_ good with his own tools. And then he'd use them to make his mom something nice. Maybe in time for _her_ birthday. And that was probably worth staying on Palaven for.

#

"Never. Again," Wrex rumbled, hauling himself out of the Mako. Garrus didn't think the wobble in the huge krogan's balance was a figment of his imagination.

Then again, _he_ wasn't entirely ready to stand up and try walking either.

"Oh, come on," Shepard protested. "It wasn't that bad."

Wrex held up a hand and made a dismissive gesture as he walked—definitely a stagger in his stride—away. When he didn't immediately head to his usual post in the belly of the _Normandy_, Garrus wondered if he was headed instead to empty his unsettled stomach without an audience.

"_Was_ it?" she asked, turning her open, frank gaze on him.

Garrus said nothing.

"Damn," she said. "I know that bit with the ledge next to the lava was touch and go for a minute—"

Garrus couldn't help it. He shuddered.

Shepard huffed a surprised breath and leaned back in the driver's seat she had yet to vacate, folding her hands across her belly. Her brow furrowed, but this was the look he'd come to realize was confusion, even though it shared any number of structural similarities to anger.

"So Wrex really is—"

"Commander," Garrus interrupted, hearing the quaver in his subharmonics and hoping she wouldn't know what it meant, "you ran over a geth armature."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "To kill it."

"The Mako has guns."

Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, she said, "It was taking too long."

He snorted. "And how to you explain the way you… drove? Can we call it driving? Drove the Mako _sideways_ through that gap in the rock no sane person would have seen as a walking path, let alone a road?"

"Shortcut."

"And the—"

She scowled at him. "This your way of telling me you're too chicken to come along next time, Vakarian? Gonna start sitting the Mako out?"

"Right," he drawled. "And let you take the lead if there's ground-combat, Commander? I don't think so. I'm up two headshots on you."

"Running over an armature to death has to count for something."

Garrus shook his head. "No changing the terms now. The challenge was headshots." After a pause, he asked, "Sure you won't let someone else have a turn behind the wheel?"

She reached out and patted the dashboard. "No one else touches my baby, Garrus."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"Sorry about the carriage. You know. Climbing the side of that mountain. In retrospect—"

"I can fix it."

"Good," she said. "And, uh… I'll try next time. To rein it in. A bit." With a shrewd, sidelong glance at him, she added, "So. You wanna stay in here and keep me company until my stomach starts to feel like it's no longer living somewhere in the vicinity of my throat?"

He barked a sudden laugh. "Definitely, Commander."


	5. Exacting

**EXACTING**

"Try again."

"Dad," Garrus pleaded. "I've already done it fifty—"

"You've done it wrong fifty times. Try again."

Frustrated, Garrus lifted the gun he'd _finally_ been given (but hadn't yet been allowed to shoot, not even _once_) and dashed it to the ground with as much strength as he could muster. A piece broke off and went tumbling down the rocky slope. The gun itself bounced once, and with a horrible crunch skidded to land at his father's feet.

His dad said nothing. He only stepped over the fallen weapon and began the walk back to the house.

"Dad… Dad! I'm—Dad, I'm sorry. _Dad, please_."

The massive wall of his dad's back did not so much as twitch in his direction. If he heard, he didn't slow and he certainly didn't stop. Garrus picked up the gun and thought about looking for the missing piece, but his father was already halfway back to the house. He had to run to catch up, and had to keep up a jog because every one of his father's steps were worth three of his own. "Dad. I said I'm sorry."

Here he finally stopped, so abruptly Garrus ran ahead a couple of steps and was forced to turn around. He didn't like what he saw on his dad's face. Under the familiar markings, his father's expression was stern. Angry, even. Controlled, of course, his dad was _always_ in control, but _angry._

"I'm sorry," he repeated, the words sounding small and stupid and not _enough_.

"I thought you were ready for this. You aren't. We have both learned a lesson today."

Garrus pulled the gun tight to his chest, afraid his dad was going to reach out and snatch it away from him. "I just… I just got mad. I'll do better next time. I promise."

But his father only shook his head. "Go ahead. Try shooting it. Aim for that rock over there."

Garrus wasn't quite able to bury the sudden surge of excitement as he lifted the gun; he felt his mandibles spread wide in a grin. He realized then that part of the sight must've been what broke off, but he tried to aim carefully even without help, lining up the barrel of the gun with the stone in the distance. _Finally._

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He pulled again. And again. But aside from a dull click, the gun remained lifeless in his hands. He thought about throwing it down again, but didn't. Somehow he thought his dad wouldn't stay quite as composed if he lost his temper twice in ten minutes.

"We'll try again when you've figured out what's wrong, and how to fix it yourself," his dad said, with eerie calm that did nothing to hide the disappointment resonating in his subharmonics. "And don't just take it to your mother. I'll know."

Because this was exactly what Garrus was imagining he'd do, he jutted out his chin and snapped his mandibles tight to his cheeks in defiance. "I can do it myself."

"I should hope so."

"But… but can't we just—you're leaving tomorrow and—"

"Children throw tantrums, and children don't play with guns. Prove to me you're not a child, Garrus. Until then, don't be surprised when your actions dictate how you're treated."

"I was just _mad_. Everyone gets mad sometimes."

"You were mad the way a child gets mad." Garrus bristled at the accusation, but tried not to show it. His dad just shook his head. "Right now you're looking at me the way an angry child looks at someone he thinks has wronged him."

"I'm _not._"

Crouching down until they were eye to eye, his father said, "Do you know what happens if a soldier on the battlefield loses control the way you did back there?"

Garrus wanted to duck his head, but instead he curled in on himself a little, still keeping his eyes fixed on his father's. "He… dies?"

His dad didn't blink. He didn't smile. He didn't even pretend to soften the blow as he said, "His squad dies. You work as a team out there, Garrus. And a team's only as good as the weakest member. You're impatient. And impatience is as much a killer of men as bullets."

Garrus swallowed hard. "I'm really sorry, Dad."

"Don't apologize to me. It won't be me you let down. It's not even me you let down today, is it?" Here Garrus did cringe, but his dad reached out and gently but firmly tilted his chin up again. "I'm not telling you these things to make you mad, son. I don't say no just to be mean. I'm teaching you to _survive._ It's not a game out there. It's not shooting targets that can't shoot back and bragging to your friends about bulls-eyes over drinks. You end up on the wrong side of a serial killer's gun, or a mercenary's, or some stupid kid who's got nothing to lose, and you get foolishly angry or your gun's not properly cared for, it means you don't come home again. You understand?"

Wide-eyed, Garrus nodded. His dad cupped the side of his face briefly, then pushed himself upright again. "I'll be home in a month. If you can fix that gun, we'll try then."

"Okay," Garrus said, peering down at the dead weapon in his arms. "I'll try."

"You don't try, son. You do. And if you want a piece of advice? Go back and find that bit that popped off. You'll need it."

Garrus didn't wait. Already trying to remember just where the piece had gone, he was off in a flash, trying to work of problems and answers in his head. He could do it. He could definitely do it. And next time would be different.

#

"I'll give you this much, Vakarian: I've never seen anyone take care of a weapon like you do."

Garrus blinked. He hadn't heard the gunnery chief approach. Usually Williams kept to her corner, tending to the armory with admirable focus and dedication, only speaking to him or to Wrex when spoken to—which wasn't often. After one particularly pointed and memorable reprimand from the commander, they'd reached a detente in the hold, but they weren't… friends. He lowered the barrel he'd been cleaning, but didn't bother rising. "Thanks," he said, once he'd found his voice. His subvocals betrayed his surprise somewhat, but he doubted Williams had the ear to pick it up. "Something I can do for you, Chief Williams?"

"Nothing," she said, and he didn't need the missing subharmonics to pick up on her uneasiness. "Just wanted to say I appreciate how thorough you are. Even the commander's weapons need extra care sometimes, but not yours."

"Good teacher," he said.

"You half as precise when you're shooting it?"

He chuckled. "Twice as."

"Can I see?" For a moment he thought she wanted him to show her how he shot, but then she extended her hand. He handed over the part and she turned it over in her hands, pretending to look at it from every angle while her gaze remained distant, unfocused. "Sometimes… you ever been in a firefight and you actually feel the moment the tide turns? It's not even something as big as the other side making a mistake. You just _know._"

"Sure," he said. "Like the second you get a target in your sights and you know nothing they do's going to stop the bullet from sliding home, just where you want it. Certainty."

"All the pieces are falling into place. Feels like we're onto something, doesn't it? More than Therum, even. Or Noveria or Feros."

Garrus huffed a breath of laughter. "You mean because we're putting together the kind of case against Saren no one'd be able to overturn?"

Williams nodded, then shook her head, extending the barrel back to him. "You'd know better than me."

"Pretty sure the commander'd answer your questions if you asked them, Williams."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Not the same as seeing combat, though. I feel like maybe I… pissed her off. Early on. Spoke my mind. Maybe put my foot in my mouth."

He knew the idiom, but it was still the kind of phrase that sounded so awkward it made him want to smile. He didn't. "You want my honest opinion?"

Her expression said she _didn't_, but she nodded and said, "Yeah."

"I, uh, put my foot in my mouth all the time. Question almost every decision she makes. Trying to take Saleon in, instead of killing him outright. Letting the rachni out into the galaxy again. Being so damned concerned with rules, even when she is, as a Spectre, above them. Thing is? She listens, then she thinks, then she tells me why she does things her way. And she doesn't hold it against me. Least, not as far as I can see."

Williams frowned. "And you still make her ground team."

"I've got her six. A difference of opinion doesn't change that. She knows it."

"I would, too, if she'd let me," Williams said sharply, her dark eyes glinting in the dim light of the hold. "I just…"

"So, what? You here to take my measure?" he asked. "Trying to figure out why me and not you? I'm happy to talk, Williams, but I don't think it's me you really want to talk _to. _She's the only one with the answers you want. Or that you don't want."

She deflated, some of the stiffness draining from her shoulders. "She's my commanding officer. It's not my place to question her decisions."

"And the other commanding officers you've served with took the time to talk to each and every member of their crew every day? She's giving you the opportunity, Williams. You're not taking it. Maybe that's what she doesn't like."

"Yeah," she said, slowly, as if the word were being torn from her. "After this next mission. When she makes her rounds for the debriefs."

"If this salarian reconnaissance team has the information we need, maybe things'll be back to Alliance as usual sooner than you think," Garrus said, with a prickle of unsettled discomfort. He wanted Saren taken down, but he wasn't sure he was looking forward to leaving this particular post once it was done.

"Maybe. And thanks," she said, tossing the word over her shoulder as she headed back to her usual post. "I meant it about the guns."

He inclined his head to accept the compliment, but she'd already turned away, and wasn't looking his way to see it.


	6. Fraternity

**FRATERNITY **

Garrus tiptoed into his sister's room, stepping over the floorboard just beside the door he _knew_ creaked at the least little bit of pressure. A faint glow from the light she couldn't sleep without cast long shadows across the floor. Solana lay sprawled across her little bed, one hand clutching the sheet and the other flung over her head. At the sound of her soft little snores, he almost changed his mind and left her to sleep.

Then he shook his head, finished crossing the room and whispered, "Sol, wake up."

She sniffled and curled into herself, but didn't wake. Garrus reached out and gently shook her shoulder. "Solana. Come on."

This, finally, was enough to make her open her eyes, but her amber gaze was sleepy. "Gawwus," she mumbled. Then she blinked, waking a little more, pushing herself up on one elbow. "Ga_rrus_."

She sounded so proud of catching the mistake and correcting it, he couldn't help smiling. "I have a surprise for you."

"'M sleepy."

"It's worth it. But you have to be quiet."

She scowled, pulling her blanket close. "Don' wanna get in trouble."

"Baby."

"'M not a baby."

"Come on then," he said, poking her in the ticklish spot _right_ between the plates on her side. She giggled and rolled away, and when she popped up again a moment later he knew he'd won her over. The sleepiness was gone, and her eyes shone. Extricating herself from her blankets, she jumped off the side of her bed and grinned at him.

"_Quiet_," he reminded her. "Or else you have to stay here."

"Shh," she replied, exaggerated and way too loud. "Quiet."

She put up a token protest as he bundled her into three extra layers of clothing, but he ignored her. Glaring balefully out from under the hood he insisted on, she muttered, "Too hot."

He grinned and tapped her lightly on the nose before scooping her up in his arms. She was heavier than she used to be, growing into the height her limbs already promised. It seemed strange, imagining his little sister one day as tall as their mom, maybe. She squirmed and he settled her on one hip. "I can walk."

"You'll make the floor squeak."

She seemed to accept this, nestling closer, her breath warm against his right mandible. He retraced his steps carefully, avoiding the creaky spots and pausing when he thought he heard his mother moving in her room. The ensuing silence was broken only by his heartbeat and the sound of Solana's breathing in his ear. "Shh," she repeated.

When they were outside, Garrus lowered his sister to her own feet, but reached out and grabbed her hand before she could get any stupid ideas about running off. He led her out behind the house, past the rocks where his attempt at learning to shoot had been aborted. At the stony outcropping, he pulled out the blanket and snacks he'd hidden earlier. Solana was starting to droop again, cold and quiet and exhaustion evidently catching up with her. "Look up," Garrus said, tugging her down to sit next to him on the blanket.

"I saw stars before," she complained, huddling close. He dropped an arm around her cowl.

"Not like this. Look."

He felt her tip her chin up, but he didn't follow her example. Instead, he watched the change come over her face. Her mandibles flared wide in surprise. Her whole body seemed alive with wonder, and Garrus smiled.

"Wow," she said. "There's so _many_. And they're _dancing._"

Garrus knew they were meteors burning up and not stars dancing, but he didn't say so. He only said, "When I was your age, Dad woke me up in the middle of the night—"

"Like you," she interrupted.

"Like me. And he made me wear too many clothes—"

"Like you!"

"Like me. And he said this only happens once every five years, and sometimes it's cloudy so you miss it. Menae's already set and Nanus is new and—"

"And the stars are dancing!"

"Yeah," he said, instead of launching into the lesson on comets and meteors he'd prepared. He could tell her later, anyway. Right now dancing was okay. Right now dancing was the best.

"Maybe someday if we have a brother or a sister I can show them."

"Maybe," Garrus said.

"But I don't know if I'll like them as much as I like you."

He couldn't help the little swell of pride that warmed his belly. Magnanimously, he said, "Sure you will."

She gave him a skeptical look, but only for a second. Then she raised her face to the stars again, and this time he joined her. He wouldn't ever have thought of them as dancing, but with his sister's word in his head and her small, warm body curled next to his, it seemed the only way to describe them.

#

Years of military training and C-Sec shiftwork had trained him to take rest where he could, but with Virmire behind them and the _Normandy_ en route to the Citadel, Garrus couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard the commander make that call. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the explosion lighting up the whole damned planet. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Shepard's face afterward. She could've looked away, but she didn't. So he didn't, either.

Maybe he and the chief hadn't been friends, but losing her still felt wrong. Caught him off-guard.

Kept him from sleeping.

After an hour of trying and failing to rest, he rose and rolled his shoulders to loose imaginary knots. If he couldn't sleep, he'd work. He wanted to recalibrate the Mako's main gun—maybe reprogram her firing algorithms, get her shooting faster. He had no idea what they'd face on Ilos, but he didn't want to take his chances. Better safe than sorry. Shepard liked that one. He wouldn't admit it, but it was an idiom he could get behind. Especially now. Too much at stake.

In the hold, the lights seemed dimmer than usual. He blinked and had to look twice when he saw a shadow move by Williams' workstation, but it was Wrex cleaning the guns this time, the soft whisk of cloth against metal too loud.

"She really was going to shoot me," Wrex said without looking up from his work. "Takes a quad to point a gun at an angry krogan."

"Takes a quad to do everything she did down there."

Wrex nodded. He set aside the pistol he'd finished cleaning and picked up a rifle, breaking it down in a rapid, faultless motion. "She's not fine," he said. "Says she is, but she isn't. Has to say it, I guess."

"She'll get it done, Wrex."

The rumble was almost a laugh, but darker. Not at all happy. "She's got a quad, too. Humans. Who knew."

"You want some hel—"

"Don't go getting emotional on me, turian. I got this. Get something of your own."

Garrus nodded, though Wrex wasn't looking at him.

When he crossed around to the other side of the hold, he found the Mako's hatch already cracked open. Shepard sat within, dressed in a uniform instead of armor, legs crossed in a way that looked both impossible and uncomfortable, bent over her lap, writing. By hand, not on her omni-tool.

"Commander," he said, taking a step backward, ready to retreat and leave her to her solitude. "Sorry, I can—"

She looked a little pale, but he put it down to the light. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. Tired, he thought. "Couldn't sleep?" she asked. "Me either."

"I, uh, I can do this later."

"Don't leave on my account," she said, patting the small space next to her. "I just thought—it's quiet down here. Quieter. You're welcome to share."

He didn't ask if she was fine. He did sit next to her on the Mako's floor, their knees almost touching.

"Letter to her family," Shepard said, gesturing with the pad of paper. "This is the first one of these I've had to write, as a commanding officer. Kept trying to type it and the words wouldn't come."

"Paper's better?"

She flipped it over. He couldn't read the lines, but he got the point—most of the small, curved shapes had heavy lines crossed through them. "No. Not really. Her family's military. Military families always know a letter like this might come. But no one's ever prepared. And she was… damn, Garrus. She was too young."

"She was damned brave. You could tell them that."

Shepard nodded, but her shoulders were still rounded and her knuckles white around the pen she held. "Do you think she meant it? Saying she had no regrets?"

"Sure," Garrus lied, because he knew it was what she needed to hear.

"Yeah," Shepard said. "That's what I thought." She set the paper aside, laying the pen square in the middle of the pad. "Garrus? Do me a favor."

"Commander?"

"Talk to me about something that isn't this."

He shrugged and held his hands wide. "Firing algorithms?"

The laugh was short and sharp and a little bitter, but it was a laugh. "Yeah, that'll do. Talk firing algorithms, big guy."

So he did. And after a while, she picked up her paper and her pen and she began writing again, but this time she didn't cross out any of the words. And he kept on talking, because she needed him to.


	7. Gun

**GUN**

It took longer than he thought it would to fix the stupid broken gun, and by the time he did, his father was in the middle of a huge case and Garrus knew he wasn't coming home until it was finished. His mom tried to keep them from watching too many newsvids about cases where his dad was involved, but this latest was too big to hide. Everyone at school was talking about it. The guy was a sniper who'd made a name for himself even before he stopped killing for the turian army and started taking out his frustrations on diplomats and ambassadors and C-Sec officers and basically anyone who'd ever pissed him off. His dad's partner was killed the week before; Garrus wasn't supposed to know. He'd heard a couple of his instructors talking about it in not-quite-hushed-enough voices.

Even with the thing about his partner, Garrus wasn't worried about his dad. His dad _always_ came home. He just didn't want to wait to shoot his gun. Instead, he figured it'd just be a huge surprise when his father found out he already knew how to hit a target about a hundred feet away.

Garrus invited stupid Renix Pollus and Anturo Glix and Verus Tynian to the house and told his mom they were going out to play in the back. He almost felt bad because she looked so tired and distracted, and instead of asking what they were planning to do—he might've had to tell her, if she'd asked directly—she only smiled and waved and said it was nice his friends were coming over and not to wander too far away.

"Can I come?" Solana pleaded, tugging on his sleeve. "Garrus? Can I come?"

"No," he said, adding a stern glare for good measure. "You're not old enough. This is for grown-ups."

"You're just a kid too," she retorted, clinging to his wrist so hard he had to jerk himself away and shake his hand to ease the ache.

"I'm bigger than you," he said. "And you can't come because I said so."

"'M telling Mom."

"You better not. I'll tell her you ate all the kammen out of the garden."

Solana flinched away, glaring at him with baleful eyes. "You promised."

"Yeah, well, you don't tell, I don't tell, Sol. That's how it works. Stay here, play with your kid toys, and leave us alone."

The sound of her door slamming echoed down the hallway, but their mom was on the comm with someone, and didn't even poke her head out to see what was going on.

Outside, Garrus showed his friends the makeshift shooting range, setting up targets as though it was something he did _all_ the time. He didn't actually want to let anyone hold the gun—Renix would probably try to shoot it—but he let them touch it, and basked a little in their praise. It _was_ a really nice gun. Way nicer than anything _they'd_ ever seen before. His dad got it for him, and everyone knew his dad was big in C-Sec. You didn't make newsvids if you weren't _someone._ It was probably the _best_ gun, actually.

Then he turned and pressed the trigger.

No one was more surprised than he was when one of the targets shattered. It hadn't been the one he was aiming at, not by a long shot, but he pretended it was.

"Wow," said Renix Pollus, for once not sarcastic. Garrus smirked, aimed, and took another shot, then another and another. Bullets ricocheted off the stones, sending chips and dust into the air. Under the admiring gazes of his friends, Garrus felt like a vid-star. He struck an elaborate pose, like one he'd seen on a poster on his trip to the Citadel.

This time, the roar of the gun was followed by a scream, high and thin and horrible. Garrus' heart stopped, and he spun around, checking to make sure his wild bullet hadn't shot one of his friends. Renix and the others were already running, bolting, but Garrus shook off his terror, his dread, and ran _toward_ the sound. _Someone's pet_, he told himself, even as he knew it wasn't because he'd never heard anything make a noise like that. _Some wild animal._

His sister lay sprawled on the ground behind the stones, a pool of blue spreading from beneath her.

She looked so small. The brown blanket she'd been hiding under was still half-spread over her. The blue looked garish against it.

He didn't even realize until his mom showed up that _he_ was the one making the horrible screaming noise he heard ringing in his ears.

#

"Hell of a shot back there, Vakarian."

"Don't know what you mean, Commander."

Shepard laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. Around them, the celebration was in full swing. Tempered somewhat by knowing not everyone had made it through what was now being called the Battle of the Citadel as unscathed as they, but a party nonetheless.

On the dance floor, Alenko was teaching Liara and Tali some kind of human dance that made Garrus dizzy to watch. Liara was picking it up well, and Tali kept trying even though quarian limbs seemed designed all wrong for the kicking and strange hand motions. They were all laughing. Wrex held court at the bar. A contingent of the Alliance crew—Pressly, Joker, Dr. Chakwas, Engineer Adams—had commandeered a table near the door, several bottles of brightly colored booze, and a board game of some kind. It seemed to involve a lot of shouting and gesticulating. One or the other of them (not Joker, he noted) rose to greet newcomers. Or chase away the ones who weren't welcome. The criteria, as far as Garrus could tell, seemed to be no admittance for anyone carrying a camera of any kind.

It was the first downtime since before Virmire, and it followed on the heels of a pretty damned spectacular victory. Garrus certainly couldn't begrudge them their carousing. He didn't want to be the resident killjoy, but he was having a hard time joining in. Tali'd already tried to drag him out to the dance floor, and when he'd refused, she'd sent a very disapproving head-tilt his way, complete with balled up fists on hips. He still declined. His little corner booth suited him fine. A couple more shots of Palaven's finest and he might be ready to show Alenko up.

He'd been contenting himself by sipping his drink in solitude and watching the commander make her rounds, same as always. She'd waved away Wrex's offer of ryncol, and skirted the dancing entirely. She'd toasted her Alliance team, though she hadn't joined in their game. He'd known she'd seek him out eventually; he just hadn't anticipated her bringing up that particular shot.

"Really?" she asked. "Modesty? Now? Just when I think I have you pegged…"

He shrugged, giving no other sign he knew what she was referring to. The tumbler of liquor he was nursing—his third of the night—wasn't quite enough to chase away the memories. Hell, couldn't even blur them. In the darkness between blinks he was back in the Citadel Tower, pulling himself upright after the thing that had been Saren threw him, broken glass crunching beneath his knees as he settled his rifle against an obliging piece of fallen masonry, finger hovering on the trigger, waiting for the moment to strike. He was watching Shepard, armed only with a pistol, and Saren—the thing that had been Saren, but wasn't anymore—dancing around each other, their movements overlaid by the crosshairs of his scope. The Saren-thing was too fast, though, its movements too erratic, and even her usual uncanny instincts weren't enough to let Shepard herd the creature in the right direction.

Then, out in the open, without so much as trying for cover, Shepard dropped. Garrus heard Wrex shout something over the comms, but he knew, he _knew_ exactly what Shepard was doing. She'd made herself _bait._ A moment later, the Saren-thing _took_ it, jumping down from its perch to straddle the woman lying prone on the grassy knoll. He heard her emptying her pistol into its synthetic belly, but it only flinched and struck at her again. On the edge of his peripheral vision, Garrus saw Wrex's hands glow blue, but the power had nowhere to go—a wave of biotic energy would take Shepard out, too.

So Garrus took the shot. Like Dr. Michel's clinic, one wrong move, one wrong breath, could've seen his bullet hit the wrong target. They were so close. Just for a moment, as his finger depressed the trigger, he thought he was going to miss. Worse. He thought he was going to hit Shepard. He imagined her eyes going wide in the instant of shock before the entire back of her skull blew out.

He didn't miss. The Saren-thing went flying backward, and this time the body disintegrated into a heap of smoldering dust.

Then the ceiling caved in. And for the interminable length of time between falling building and rescue and Shepard emerging dust-covered and grinning from the wreckage, he'd believed her dead.

And now, even with her sitting next to him in the booth, leaning forward with her elbows on the table, very much alive, he couldn't quite forget how inexplicably distraught he'd been at the prospect of her death.

It took a lot to unsettle him. And he was unsettled.

When he didn't say anything, Shepard turned toward him, propping one elbow on the table and resting the side of her face against her raised fist. The posture was casual; the look in her eyes, the opposite. "Wong and al-Jilani and the entirety of the Alliance News Network might be giving the kill to me, but I know what I saw."

"It was risky. Could've hit you."

One eyebrow lifted. "Come on, Vakarian. I've seen you make harder shots. Knew you'd come through if I gave you the opening. We're a team."

"Were, anyway," he said. He regretted his words when she frowned. "C-Sec's going to seem tame in comparison."

"Sure you don't want to see what other strings Spectre status can pull?"

His mandibles flared in a brief smile. "Never know, Commander. Maybe I'll get tapped for Spectre status of my own after this mission."

She nodded, but the frown didn't entirely vanish. After a moment she straightened and nudged his shoulder with her own. She seemed smaller out of her hardsuit. He remembered how certain he'd been she was dead, and that strange _not right_ feeling ran like a chill down the length of his spine. "Hey, Garrus?"

"Commander?"

"Enough with the Commander business, okay? It's just Shepard. And you ever change your mind, the _Normandy_'s always got a berth for you."

For a second, he wanted to take her up on it. Turn his back on everything except keeping the Mako running smoothly and Shepard's six covered. _Irresponsible,_ said the voice in his head that sounded like his father. _Maybe I am,_ he retorted, already knowing when the _Normandy_ departed in a couple of days, he wouldn't be on it. "Thanks, Comm—Shepard."

She smiled, but something in her expression still made him uneasy. He couldn't put his finger on it. Raising her hand, she gestured for another round. "On me," she said, as if the entire bill wasn't already being footed by the grateful owners of the bar, "kill shot on Saren's got to put your tally above mine."

It didn't, but he let her buy him the drink anyway.


	8. Helpless

**HELPLESS**

Garrus didn't like hospitals.

Either you were there because you hurt yourself, like when he broke his arm, or because someone else was hurt, like now. (_When _you_ got someone else hurt,_ he thought uncomfortably. _Because you're a stupid show-off just like Renix Pollus and you couldn't just wait like Dad told you to._) Maybe hospitals were okay when babies were born—though the vids made the whole baby thing look pretty horrible—but otherwise it didn't seem like very many _good_ things happened in them.

Scratch that. He didn't just dislike hospitals. He hated them. Hospitals smelled all wrong, like sickness and antiseptic and too-harsh cleaning solvents, and his nose itched constantly. Everything was so sterile he was afraid even to sit in the chairs. Instead, he perched uncomfortably on the lip of one, and stared hard at the white tile between his feet. The machines whirred and beeped incessantly; every time he got used to them, or they faded into the background, the tempo changed and he was reminded all over again. He wondered what all the sounds meant. He wondered when his sister was going to wake up. She'd been sleeping a long time. Way longer than he'd ever seen anyone sleep before. He didn't like it. And it was all his fault.

He never forgot that part.

No one talked to him. They didn't even look at him. In a way, he was glad he was invisible. He was afraid if they noticed him, they'd make him leave. He didn't want to leave. Not while Solana was still sleeping. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was. He wanted to promise he'd never leave her behind again. Not ever.

But she wouldn't wake up.

The doctors milled around wearing crisp, white uniforms, muttering words too big for him to understand. He tried to look them up in the dictionary on the new omni-tool he'd gotten for his birthday (at the same time as the gun—_no, don't even think about that, don't think about it, I'm never shooting a gun again, not ever_), but when he typed in 'hemrage' nothing came up. He tried a few more variations with no results. He guessed he was spelling it wrong, but he didn't want to ask because that would defeat the purpose of looking it up on his own in the first place. He thought about whispering it aloud, but he didn't want to disturb his mom. Or Sol. Not that Sol seemed aware of the millions of distractions all around her.

Not that his mom did, either, really.

His mother sat in a chair at Solana's bedside, and this was the wrongest of all the wrong things. Garrus was used to his mom pacing when she was nervous or upset or thinking. He'd never seen her so still. His mom didn't really _do_ still. Usually if she was awake she was moving. Cleaning. Cooking. Tinkering in her workshop. Puttering in her garden. _Doing. _But after the first flurry of activity—arguing with doctors, demanding answers no one seemed able to give—she'd gone unnaturally quiet. He knew she was awake because every once in a while her breath would come heavy and shuddering and she'd exhale a keening little cry. Any other time, he'd have sat next to her and told her the things adults always said when people were sad or scared: _it will be okay, everything will be fine, we'll get through this._

But this was all his fault, and he couldn't say those words when it was all his fault. He couldn't even apologize, because _sorry_ wasn't good enough. It couldn't make Sol open her eyes, couldn't make the white hospital disappear, couldn't undo the whole stupid thing with the stupid gun.

Garrus wished he could undo it. He'd never wished anything more in his whole life.

He imagined his dad saying, _what's done is done, son. All you can do is learn and move on. All you can do is make amends._

But Garrus didn't know how to make amends for something like this.

The swish of the opening door made him look up. It was always just doctors with their big words or nurses taking measurements and readings, but he always looked, in case this time one of them had good news in words Garrus could understand.

It wasn't a doctor or a nurse this time, though. It was his dad. Like the doctors and his mom, his dad didn't even look at him. The sound of the door opening was enough to bring his mother's head up, and her breath caught audibly.

"Kaius," she said, rising unsteadily. "Spirits, Kaius, I—I wasn't expecting—your case—"

"Pallin's handling it," his father said, crossing the room. He slipped one arm around her, and she turned her head to press the side of her face against him. "Of course I'm here. I'm only sorry it took so long." Here he paused, and glanced around the room; Garrus flinched when his dad's hard gaze found him, and pushed himself back in the chair, clenching his hands tightly around the arms.

"She'll be fine," his father said, saying the words Garrus wished he could say. "Everything will be fine, Niva. Everything will be fine."

Garrus almost believed him.

Maybe if he hadn't been sitting here for days trying to figure out patterns of beeps or the meaning of words like hemrage, he might have.

Still, it was good to hear someone say the words, at least, even if they were just a nice way of telling a lie.

#

When Anderson left, Garrus stood, covered the short distance to the kitchen, opened the highest cupboard, and took out the bottle of Palavenian liquor his dad had given him the first time he closed a big case. He had to blow dust from the glass, but the pale blue liquid within looked clear and dangerously inviting.

_For now Commander Shepard's listed as missing in action, but Flight Lieutenant Moreau says he saw her die._

Garrus snagged a glass with his other hand, though he was tempted to forgo it altogether. Only the mental image of his mother's complete and utter disappointment stopped him from just tipping the contents of the bottle down his throat.

_The _Normandy_ went down over Alchera._

_Flight Lieutenant Moreau says he saw her die._

"Damn, Shepard," he said into the silence of his apartment. He shivered with cold, even though he knew, logically, the room was the exact temperature he always kept it. "Damn. This wasn't supposed to—damn."

_The _Normandy_ went down over Alchera._

_Flight Lieutenant Moreau says he saw her die._

The bottle he had at home wasn't enough to quiet the words running circles in his head, and he didn't have more. So when it was empty, he went to a bar. He found the darkness comforting. The music, loud and repetitive, almost did what the liquor at home hadn't. Didn't stop Garrus from ordering a second bottle. The bartender asked how many glasses Garrus wanted with it. Garrus just glared. The man slid one tumbler across the bar and retreated to serve the next customer.

Garrus was well into the bottle when he overheard the pair of turians a table over start ranting about upstart humans. "Can't believe they're giving the bastards a seat on the Council. They've been around a few years. What the hell do they know about galactic politics?" asked one, with red clan markings Garrus didn't recognize. Not Palaven. The other turian grumbled his assent, and the first added, "The Citadel fleet's the reason that big geth ship's gone, not some pyjak Spectre with delusions of grandeur. Don't care what the vids say."

"What was that?" Garrus asked. He didn't think he sounded drunk. A little too sharp and a little too loud, maybe. Definitely not drunk. And the ass had it coming. Whatever _it_ ended up being. Death, maybe.

The turian didn't even turn to face him completely. "Someone invite you to this conversation, C-Sec?"

C-Sec. Garrus glanced down. Sure enough, he was still in uniform. The conversation with Anderson—_I thought you should hear it from me_—seemed an eternity ago, but it'd only been hours. Anderson had caught him just as he came off shift.

And between the end of the first bottle and the desire for a second one, with the liquor unable to chase the words _Flight Lieutenant Moreau says he saw her die_ ringing in his head, it hadn't occurred to Garrus to change.

He knew he'd be up to his fringe in a bureaucratic nightmare if he was caught intoxicated in uniform. Chances were he'd lose his job.

He couldn't care less.

In the back of his mind, he heard Shepard laughing, joking about abusing her Spectre status to help him out. Only then did he realize he'd come to the same damned bar. He was sitting across from the same damned booth. He was drinking the same damned turian swill he'd drunk then, the night of the celebration after the Battle of the Citadel. The last damned place he'd seen her.

A month ago. One month. One. Damned. Month.

It wasn't right. And he couldn't do a damned thing to change it.

"I think you want to take that back," Garrus drawled, pushing himself back from the table. The chair scraped along the sticky floor, catching on an uneven tile, and the half-empty bottle of liquor wobbled unsteadily.

"And I think you want to mind your own damned business," the other turian shot back.

Before Garrus could smash his fist into the other turian's smirking mandible, another hand caught his. A huge hand. A krogan hand.

"Don't be stupid, turian."

Garrus took a deep breath, already running tactics. Through the haze of drink, he almost thought the rumbling krogan voice sounded familiar. He couldn't spare a thought for that now, though. No turian liked the odds of a one-on-one fight with a krogan, but he and Wrex'd sparred a couple of times there in the hold, toward the end. He wasn't entirely unprepared, and they still had weaknesses, for all their regeneration and breadth and height. He—

Wrex.

That was why he recognized the voice.

A glance revealed the familiar, scarred face. Garrus let the tension drain from his arm, and Wrex released him.

"Problem?" Wrex asked the other turian.

"The drunk bastard can't mind his own business. Pyjak-loving freak."

Garrus' hand twitched again, but this time Wrex stepped between him and the other turian. "Watch your mouth," Wrex said. "Takes a lot to earn my respect, and the human you're badmouthing's one of the only people in the galaxy who has it."

And then Garrus realized Wrex didn't know.

_Flight Lieutenant Moreau—_

He swallowed, trying to find words and feeling only the sickness of too much liquor roiling in his gut. After three tries, he managed to say, "We should go. We… we should go."

"Yeah, run away," said the turian. "Go hide behind—"

Whatever he was going to say was silenced not by Garrus' fist, but by Wrex's. The turian went down hard, rolling on the floor, clutching at one side of his face.

"Wrex," Garrus said.

Wrex shrugged. "What? I'm not wearing a uniform. And he was asking for it."

"It's not that. The, uh—" Garrus blinked, searching for words and finding only Anderson's. The injured turian's moaning distracted him. He wondered if Wrex was standing in as a bouncer, since no one came rushing over to see what the commotion was about. Maybe no one wanted to deal with a pissed off krogan. "The _Normandy _went down over Alchera." Even though they'd been cycling around his brain for hours, said out loud, the words didn't make sense. "Flight Lieu—Joker. Joker saw her. She… didn't make it."

For the space of a heartbeat—maybe two—Wrex went still. Then he sent a half-hearted kick at the still-complaining turian on the floor, and said, "You want company?"

"Yeah."

"Bastard's lucky you didn't kill him."

"Yeah," Garrus repeated. "Drink?"

"Ryncol," said Wrex. "Until I forget what you just told me."

Garrus nodded. Then shook his head. "Yeah."


	9. Instruction

**INSTRUCTION**

Now that they were back home, Garrus found it was almost easier to stay invisible than it'd been at the hospital. He kept to his room. His parents took turns sitting with Solana, who still slept a lot. Too much, Garrus thought. He kept meaning to go in when she was awake, but even if he couldn't admit it to anyone else, he knew he was scared to see her, to talk to her. He thought she might look at him with hateful eyes, or, worse, afraid ones. Now that the doctors said she was going to recover, he was worried she wouldn't ever trust him again. She was only a little kid. Little kids were supposed to trust their big brothers.

Of course, big brothers weren't supposed to shoot their little sisters, either. Not even by mistake.

The sudden knock on his bedroom door was enough to make him jump, but the "May I come in?" that followed was what really threw him. Usually it was his mom who knocked. And his dad'd never asked permission before just opening the door before.

"Garrus? I know you're in there."

It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting his dad's anger—the opposite, really. He'd just been waiting. He'd even told himself he was prepared, and that when he was inevitably taken to task, he'd bear it without flinching. Like a good turian. Whatever his dad came out with was no less than he deserved.

But now, knowing his father was standing on the other side of the door, Garrus lost his nerve. Embarrassingly, his heart began to hammer. He was afraid his dad'd be able to hear it all the way from the hallway. Even through the door.

"Just a second," Garrus said.

With trembling hands, he reached out and held tight to the edge of the bed. He waited until he was sure his feet were solid against the floor before standing, and when he was upright, he sent his gaze immediately to the ground. "You can come in."

"What's with the lights?"

Garrus shrugged as his dad flipped the switch and the room flooded with bright light. "Sometimes it's easier to think in the dark."

"Fair enough." His dad left the lights on, though. "Where's the gun?"

Garrus flinched, and his gaze shot up to meet his father's. His dad stood just inside the doorway, sharp eyes missing nothing. At least he didn't have his arms crossed over his chest. Sometimes Garrus imagined that in an interrogation, all his dad had to do was cross his arms and the bad guys would be spilling their guts all over the place.

"Gone," Garrus said.

His dad just kept staring. Garrus swallowed. He wanted to scuff his foot against the tile, but didn't. It would only make his dad tell him not to fidget. His dad hated fidgeting. "I threw it away. Outside. After."

He saw his father's chest rise and fall on a long breath. "Was it loaded?"

Garrus nodded.

"And if some other child found it?"

"I didn't really think about… Dad, you don't understand. You weren't there. You didn't see what it did."

After a moment, his dad crossed the room and crouched down, bringing himself to Garrus' level. "I think I know the damage a gun can do. But your sister's going to be all right. You understand that, don't you?"

It was what Garrus had been told, of course, but he kept seeing the blue blood on the brown blanket, kept hearing his sister's scream, and he wasn't sure he believed it.

"Garrus, I owe you an apology."

He heard the words, understood them all separately, but couldn't fathom how they'd come to be spoken by his dad. He blinked and shrugged and shook his head all at the same time. "It was my fault. You told me to wait for you and I didn't."

His father nodded. "I owe you an apology because I never thought you'd be able to fix it on your own. I underestimated you. I thought I'd set you an impossible task. I was trying to teach you one kind of lesson, and instead you were forced to learn another. One I'd rather you'd learned when you were much older." Here, his dad stood straight again, and took a step toward the open door. "Come along."

"Where?"

"To find the gun."

"No," Garrus said. This time he didn't look at the floor or hunch his shoulders or back away. He straightened up as tall as he could. He crossed his arms over his chest the way his dad sometimes did. He didn't blink and he didn't tremble and he didn't shuffle his feet. "No, Dad. I'm never shooting a gun again."

For a moment, his dad only looked at him. Not angry. Not even irritated. It was the way Garrus looked at puzzles or new tech. Curious. And thoughtful at the same time. "Why?"

"They hurt people. I hurt Solana. I don't want to do that again."

"Is that what I do? Hurt people?"

Garrus frowned, reaching up to rub absently at the side of his neck. For once, his dad didn't admonish him for fidgeting. "You protect people."

"Using a gun." His father reached down and ran a hand lightly over Garrus' fringe. "A gun I spent a long time learning how to shoot without hurting anyone by mistake. Trust me when I say it's something you have the ability to learn."

Garrus' stomach twisted. He wanted to push past his dad and run into the other room, bury himself under blankets, hide in the thick foliage of the garden. The thought of picking up a weapon, pulling a trigger… lunch was a long time ago, but Garrus still thought he was going to lose what remained of it. All over the floor and his dad's boots. "I can't."

"Here's another lesson I wish you didn't have to learn: if you don't face your fear now, you'll let it win. Are you afraid, son?"

Garrus thought about saying no. After a second, though, he realized his dad would see right through any false bravado, so he said, "Yeah."

"Good. Use it. Learn from it. Let it keep you from making mistakes. But don't let it be the master of you, or it'll make every decision, and you'll never be your own man."

"But I don't _want_ to be afraid. I want to be like you."

His dad chuckled. It was strange to hear it; no one'd laughed at all since Sol got hurt. "I'm afraid all the time, son. Everyone is. The more you have to care about, the more afraid you are. Don't forget that. But I use my fear; the fear doesn't use me."

"Can you teach me _that_?"

"I don't know," his dad said. "Are you going to come with me to find your gun?"

Garrus shuddered, and hugged his arms tightly around himself. "Okay."

"Get your coat."

With one arm still half in the sleeve, Garrus said, "Dad? I don't understand. Aren't you going to punish me? For… for what I did?"

With one hand on the door, his father paused. Then, very slowly, he turned and leveled a speculative look at Garrus. "You think I can do a better job of it than you've been doing on your own?"

Garrus jammed his arm the rest of the way into the sleeve. "I think tomorrow I should talk to Sol when she's awake."

"That's a good plan."

"Because I'm not going to let my fear win."

His dad reached out, but instead of taking Garrus' hand, like he would a child, he only clapped him lightly on the shoulder.

#

"Vakarian!"

Garrus swallowed the groan before it could escape, and by the time he glanced up to see Executor Pallin bearing down on him, he thought he was doing a pretty passable impression of neutral.

Pallin half-dropped, half-threw a datapad. It bounced with a sickly-sounding crunch before sliding across the desk. It stopped short of slipping over the edge, but Garrus didn't look down. He'd seen Pallin mad before. He'd _made_ Pallin mad before. This was something else entirely. He didn't even need the cue of subharmonics to know the executor was _raging._

"You have any idea what that is?"

"You'll have to enlighten me, sir, unless you want to give me a minute to go over—"

"The court order instructing us to release Katak. Effective immediately."

Garrus' own rage unfurled, instant and hot, in his belly. His hand curled into a fist before he could stop it. He saw Pallin's eyes track the gesture. "That's not possible. The bastard's so dirty—"

"Yes," Pallin said, the coolness of his tone only stoking the fire of Garrus' anger. Not content with being a criminal in just one arena, Jeth Katak was up to all four eyeballs in slave trafficking with a side of red sand dealing. He'd _admitted_—Garrus' brow lowered and his mandibles flicked tight to his cheeks. Whatever Pallin saw on Garrus' face made him nod. "Did you just realize _now_ an admission by way of C-Sec coercion would be inadmissible? What the hell were you _thinking_?"

Before Garrus could answer, Pallin raised a hand and made a dismissive gesture. "Don't answer. You weren't thinking. That's been your problem for _months_, Vakarian." Derision seethed through Pallin's subvocals. "I'd say since you came back, but we both know it started before you left in the first place. You've never been able to follow orders."

"I wasn't wrong about Saren."

"You weren't. And gratitude for your service is the only reason you're sitting behind that desk right now. But playing Spectre didn't actually grant you Spectre authority, and we had a case against Katak before you gave him a concussion."

"Right," Garrus replied, unwilling—perhaps unable, but he didn't want to admit it—to keep his tone civil. "Like the cases you had against Ulik and Targan and Dannas? Those _airtight_ cases? How'd those work out for you?"

Pallin leaned closer, his voice dropping into a hushed snarl. "Sometimes we lose. Sometimes criminals go free. But at the end of the day, we're still clean. We're still the law. The law can't start breaking its own rules, or it's not the law anymore."

"And the kids Targan sells to the highest bidder? The colonies ransacked by slavers who answer to Katak? The morgue full of ODs from the tainted sand Ulik pushes? What's the law doing for them?"

"Trying to do things right. We still put away three or five or ten for every one we lose. And we'd've had Katak, if not for your inability to follow protocol."

Trembling with the barely suppressed fury he'd more or less come to think of as a constant companion these days, Garrus lowered his hands to the desk and used the momentum to push himself upright. _Come on, Vakarian,_ said the voice in his head he wanted to ignore. It popped up irritatingly often. It was the voice that made him think he was in the belly of a dead ship, and that if he turned to the left he'd see a smirking redhead peering at him from inside a Mako. _Can't think straight when you're pissed. And decisions made in anger'll come back to bite you in the ass every time._

Pallin straightened, folding his arms over his chest and doing the best damned impression of Kaius Vakarian Garrus had ever seen. Garrus wondered if he practiced in the mirror. Of course, it was entirely the wrong tactic. The reminder of his father only made Garrus angrier. _Do things right, or don't do them at all. _It was his dad's damned motto. And see how well that turned out.

"_Right_ seems pretty damned wrong from where I'm standing," Garrus said. "And I'm pretty sure the glut of victims who never saw justice happen would say the same. If they were alive to say anything at all."

Pallin's mandibles twitched. Garrus' visor told him they were alone, now; the room had cleared. He hadn't even heard it happen. _Slipping, Vakarian._ The only other noise in the office was a vidscreen blaring in the background. He supposed this was the beginning of the end, then, and he couldn't bring himself to care.

"—_Council has issued a statement regarding the attacks on the Citadel four months ago. Though the Council is not certain what technology former Spectre Saren Arterius used to control them, it has been emphatically decided the attack on the Citadel was not the work of "Reapers"—a mythical race of sentient machines—as some parties wrongfully claimed, but of the geth."_

"You've got to be kidding me," Garrus said, turning away from Pallin to focus on the vidscreen. "Some parties? _Wrongfully claimed?_"

_"Furthermore, with Arterius dead, the Council has determined the threat of another attack is minimal. The Council report stressed the need for citizens to return to duty, and asks us all to stand together in this time of rebuilding. The danger has passed. We must now look to the future."_

"Bullshit," Garrus spat. "After everything she did, this is what she gets? Reduced to some party wrongfully claiming the damned truth while the Council puts their collective heads up their asses?"

Pallin cleared his throat. "We're not finished here, Vakarian."

Garrus turned so sharply Pallin took a step backward. He thought the executor almost looked frightened. Any other time, he'd have been proud of the accomplishment. "You know what, Venari," he said, unclipping the C-Sec-issue pistol from its holster and tossing it onto the desk next to the teetering datapad, "you're wrong. We are."

Pallin didn't call after him. Garrus didn't expect him to. He heard the datapad fall with a crash as he walked away, but he didn't look back. No damned point. There was nothing for him here. Not anymore.


	10. Justice

**JUSTICE**

"Do you know why you're here, Garrus?"

The patronizing tone made Garrus' plates itch, but he tried not to let it show.

"Yes, sir," he replied. It was worth the effort it took to remain calm just to see the way Instructor Tyik's mandibles flared in surprise. The right side of Garrus' face ached from the couple of good hits Kollis had landed, and his mouth still tasted of blood, though he was pretty sure his bitten tongue wasn't actually bleeding anymore. Still, he tried not to let his discomfort show. Tyik might not want to treat him with respect, but Garrus knew what he'd done, and he wasn't about to act ashamed of it. "But I think there's been a mistake."

Tyik's browplates lowered and he said, "I fail to see how there could be. Instructor Reen said she pulled you off Kollis. We had to call the medic for him."

Garrus nodded, glad the condescension was gone. At least anger was honest. And maybe even expected, since Tyik only knew one side of the story. "Yes, sir. I know. But—"

"This behavior is unacceptable. We have been… forgiving, in light of your sister's accident and the strain that must've put on you, but it was months ago now, and we simply cannot turn a blind eye—"

Garrus' calm cracked a little. He dug the blunted ends of his talons into his palms to distract himself, but it only half-worked. He'd made sure not to tuck his thumb into his fist, but his hand still throbbed. "This has nothing to do with Solana, sir. Kollis was—"

Tyik went on as though Garrus hadn't spoken. Patronizing, he decided, was better than being completely ignored. "You are bigger than he is, and schoolyard squabbles cannot be allowed to boil over into violence. If you cannot learn to hold your temper in check now, how will you manage in the field? Five years isn't such a long time, and if you think you'll be allowed to get away with this kind of conduct in basic—"

"Sir," said Garrus, with a hard edge to his subvocals, ignoring the glare Tyik sent his way at the interruption. "You _are_ turning a blind eye, just not about me. It wasn't a squabble and I didn't want it to turn ugly, but Kollis has been picking on the younger kids for weeks. Today he made Tana cry and then stole the credits her mom gave her to go to the vids later. I gave him the chance to give it back. He refused. I may be bigger than him, but Kollis is twice Tana's weight and maybe he didn't _break_ her mandible, but I'm pretty sure she'll be hurting for—"

"So that justified breaking _his_? You should have reported his misconduct to an instructor."

"I did, sir. The last five times it happened."

Tyik's mandibles twitched. It was a smaller, slighter gesture than the earlier surprise, but no less expressive. "I wasn't expecting falsehoods from you, Garrus."

Garrus bristled, then clenched his hands into even tighter fists. This time the pain just made him more frustrated. "I'm not lying. The first time, I told Instructor Gallian and he said he'd deal with it. But three days later, Kollis was at it again. I've told three different instructors, sir. This is the second time Instructor Reen's let him get away with it. I know his parents—"

"His parents have nothing to do with it."

Garrus tilted his head. "If you say so, sir. But that's not what he says. _He_ says your hands are tied because his dad's one of the primarch's aides and his mom's a general."

"And you believe the status of your parents also buys you exemption from the rules?"

He couldn't keep the skepticism from his tone when he replied, "You've met my parents, sir. Both'd be harder on me than you could if they thought I'd done something wrong."

"You have done something wrong." Tyik leaned forward on his elbows, his green gaze unblinking over his folded hands. "You'll apologize, Garrus."

"No, sir, I will not," Garrus replied, straightening his shoulders and lifting his chin. He knew it was just a bit disrespectful, but he couldn't submit. Not now. Not when Tyik was so _wrong._ "I'm not sorry."

"Then you'll be suspended. Until you reconsider your position."

Garrus didn't blink. He nodded again, and rose to his feet. "What Kollis did was wrong. He waits until the instructors aren't looking, and he has the kids so terrified of him they'll never tell the truth about what he does because they're afraid of what he'll do to them if he finds out. But I know what I saw, and it was no less than he deserved. I'm not going to reconsider, sir. I wouldn't like myself very much if I did."

His mom sighed when he explained, but at least she listened. He missed three days of school before things were settled.

And then Kollis apologized to _him._

Garrus told him to talk to Tana instead, and tried not to feel gratified by the fear in the other boy's eyes.

#

"You know why I'm here, Mirki'it?"

Garrus leaned against the doorframe, the picture of relaxation. He'd have crossed his arms to add another level of nonchalance, but he didn't trust the batarian not to take a wild shot at him, so he kept his gun conspicuously visible.

Mirki'it's eyes darted, evidently expecting his hired thugs to appear at any moment to save him. Garrus let himself smirk. Not too much, but a little. He'd already taken care of Mirki'it's mercs, and unless the batarian was hiding another patrol, they weren't going to be interrupted. His visor wasn't picking up any other vitals in the vicinity. Mirki'it's were off the charts. He could've ended the confrontation with a spray of rifle fire—hell, he could've taken the bastard out from one of the catwalks above—but a quick, quiet death was too good for scum of Mirki'it's caliber.

The batarian feigned unconcern. "If I'm not mistaken, you're looking for your cut."

Garrus offered the man a toothy grin. Four eyes blinked back, but the heart-rate on Garrus' monitor spiked. "My cut? Don't remember going into business with you."

"Token of my appreciation," Mirki'it said, oozing solicitude. "Mark of my respect. You've done a great deal for the neighborhood."

"Taken out some of your competition, you mean," Garrus returned.

"For which I am grateful. Excessively grateful."

"And you're prepared to show that gratitude?"

"Certainly," Mirki'it said. "Generously." Garrus wasn't as familiar with the batarian tells for nervousness, but he hardly needed them. The man was practically vibrating with anxiety, and his hands trembled as he began to reach for something in the desk.

"I don't think so," Garrus chided. "Hands where I can see them, Mirki'it. Don't want anyone making mistakes they might regret." He rolled his shoulders with deceptive indifference as he pushed himself away from the doorframe. "You know anything about mistakes? Regrets, maybe?"

"I'm a businessman."

Without breaking eye-contact, Garrus deliberately tilted his head to the right. A flash of rage contorted Mirki'it's face. "You want to try that without the outright lies this time?"

"Look," Mirki'it said, voice still rough with the anger Garrus' insult had brought about, "I don't know who you think you are—"

"Archangel mean anything to you?"

Mirki'it dove behind the desk, but Garrus was already halfway there. He cleared the desk easily and had Mirki'it pinned before he could do more than scrabble for whatever weapon he'd been reaching for. Garrus dug a large packet of red sand out of his armor and waved it in the batarian's face.

"This look familiar?" Garrus asked. He didn't know if the batarian understood the mechanics of turian voices well enough to know what Garrus' was telling him, but he struggled twice as hard to get free. Garrus grabbed Mirki'it by the throat with his free hand and smashed him hard against the ground. It took a long time for all four eyes to track back to him. "You know where I found this, Mirki'it?"

"It's not mine."

"Right. I believe you." Garrus let go of Mirki'it's throat long enough to tear a gash in the side of the package. Grains of red sand drifted out, and the batarian squirmed in a vain attempt to get his face away from the drug. "Except I don't. Calm down, Mirki'it. Way you're writhing makes me think you _know_ there's something bad with this batch. You want to answer that question now? The one about regrets?"

"I have money. I have money. I'll give you whatever you—"

"Do I look like I care about _money_? No. The way I see it, you signed your death warrant when you started selling tainted drugs to kids. Human kids, because maybe they won't be repeat customers, but at least you don't lose out on your investment even though the merchandise is bad, right? Am I close, Mirki'it? Take their money and get rid of some pyjak vermin at the same time? Twelve ODs. And those are the ones I know about. What're twelve ODs worth? You have that kind of money, Mirki'it?"

"Yes!"

"No," Garrus said as he dumped the entire packet of red sand into the batarian's four wide eyes and watched him die, screaming. Like he deserved.


	11. Kinship

**KINSHIP**

"Garrus? Garrus, you there?"

He poked his head out from under the battered old skycar his mom'd rescued from scrap for him to tinker with. A lot of it was computerized, but he was still fascinated by all the things that had to be connected just _right_ for it to work. Not that this one did. He'd been fixing and tweaking and messing around, reading ancient manuals and researching replacement parts, but he still couldn't begin to see how all the pieces fit together. He figured by the time he actually managed to get it fixed, he'd be old enough to drive it. Maybe that was the point. Maybe his mom even came out when he was sleeping and sabotaged his work to make _sure_ of it. Sounded like something she might do.

"Garrus?"

He hauled himself up, reaching for a rag to clean off his hands. Solana beamed when she saw him, and even though it'd been more than a year since The Accident (that was all anyone ever called it anymore, on the very rare occasions it came up: The Accident), he still felt a flood of relief when her expression was bright and sweet and happy to see him instead of filled with the resentment or hate he'd been dreading ever since The Accident happened. She grinned and bobbed on her toes, and Garrus was taken aback by how different she looked. She was growing up. And even though he saw her every day, somehow today she looked… older. At some point she'd gone from his soft, chubby baby sister to a little girl. The baby-dark tone of her plates had brightened to a silvery-grey much more like his own, but the curve of mandible and jaw and brow had their mom written all over it.

She bounced again, mandibles spread wide in a huge grin, amber eyes shining. "Do you know what day it is?"

Garrus scratched idly at the side of his face. "I don't know, Sol."

She tilted her head, brow lowering. "But I—"

"Well, it's not a school day. That's nice."

"No," Solana began, crossing her arms and glaring. "Don't you know it's—"

"Oh! I remember!" Garrus clapped his palm to his forehead in mock realization. Solana's entire demeanor shifted all over again, swinging back to delight. Garrus swallowed his smirk. "I promised Verus I'd help him with his homework. He's so bad I think you could probably tutor him, Sol."

"_Garrus_."

"Yeah?"

She stomped one foot and glowered. He had visions of not-so-subtle acts of revenge and favorite things going missing, and he relented, crossing the garage to sweep her into a wriggling, protesting hug. She might be growing up, but she was still small to him. "Did you think I'd forget my favorite sister's sixth birthday?"

Muffled by his embrace, she muttered, "'M your only sister."

"Doesn't mean you can't be my favorite."

"If I'm your favorite does that mean you'll have a party with me?"

Garrus gave her a last squeeze and set her down again. "Thought the party was tomorrow."

She gave him a _don't be stupid_ look. "That's the party with my friends. I just want a party with you." She sent an unerring elbow into his unprotected waist and he winced and laughed at the same time, earning a giggle from her. "I made a dulcia. All by myself. With _extra_ velara fruit."

"Good thing Dad's not here."

She ducked her head. "But it's _your_ favorite."

This time his embrace was gentler, and he nuzzled the top of her head until she squirmed and laughed and told him he was tickling her.

"Come on then, Sol," Garrus said. "I'm all yours. Let the party begin."

She clapped twice, flung her arms around him, squeezed tightly, and then grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the house. He blinked at the flurry of activity and allowed himself to be led. "I got it all set up," she said. "I made hats. And streamers. And I painted some pictures. And some of my dolls are coming and Mom said we could eat the dessert before dinner and it's going to be fun, G, it's going to be so fun."

"Yeah," he said, with a fond smile. "Definitely."

Of course, when his sister dished him out a huge portion of the… thing that bore little resemblance to any dulcia he'd ever had (it wasn't supposed to be spicy, and he had no idea how she'd managed to combine salty _and _spicy _and_ sour, but completely miss sweet altogether. In a dessert) he peered at her over his plate to see if she was putting one over on him. She watched each bite he took with intense interest, her own bowl of dulcia untouched.

"Is it good?" Solana asked, gazing up at him so guilelessly and with so much hope, he knew she wasn't playing some kind of trick on him.

"The best," he replied.

He'd have eaten the whole platter if it meant keeping _that smile_ on his sister's face.

#

Garrus brought up the three dimensional floor plan, turning it in an attempt to map out—again—the planned route. He had contingencies for his contingencies, but the Eclipse gang wasn't a street-corner red sand dealer or a slaver with a few underpaid, overworked mercs guarding the obvious entrances and exits. This was going to be a big hit. And it had to go perfectly, or they'd all be dead.

Tapping a command, he added the building's ductwork to the image. It lit up red against the yellow floor plan, glowing green at potential access points and blue at weak spots. Erash said they'd be fine, but Garrus didn't want to take anything for granted. He stood, attempting to take in the view from another angle, and came face to face with Sidonis, entering from the hallway.

"Still working," Sidonis said in a dry drawl, "please take note of my surprise."

Garrus sent a brief frown over his shoulder and flipped the image. He didn't want anyone coming up through the basement. Maybe he could leave Melanis and Butler to—but no, then he'd have a hole—

"And by surprise," Sidonis continued mildly, "I mean complete lack thereof. Don't you think it's maybe time to join the rest of the world for a bit? You've been up here for hours, Garr—"

"Don't."

Sidonis shot him a skeptical look. "They might call you Archangel, but they all know who you are."

"They know who I was, maybe," Garrus said, adding each member of his squad to the map. He didn't see any gaps in either offense or defense. "This is who I am. That name's not mine anymore."

Garrus felt Sidonis' eyes on the back of his neck, but he only turned the image again, and tapped the console to bring up the locations of the bombs they'd already placed around the perimeter of the base. He didn't think any of them would be found before the strike, but just in case—

"You know it's terrifying as hell when you pull this whole 'I'm an idea not a man' crap, right?"

"Omega doesn't need men."

"Omega doesn't need you losing your damned mind over a strike, either. You've been over this plan from top to bottom a dozen times already. It's solid. It's as solid as it's ever going to be. Worrying about it is not going to help, and frankly? They could use you downstairs. For morale, if nothing else. Play some rounds of Skyllian Five. Hand Vortash his ass the way you always do, even though he never sees it coming. Hell, let Monteague flirt with you and let Sensat tell you stories about the good old days. They're all taking their cues from you, boss. You over-thinking things only makes them anxious, and anxious people are the ones who make mistakes."

Garrus turned, leaning against the table and crossing his arms over his chest, hiding his surprise under a veneer of nonchalance. He wasn't sure he trusted himself to speak. Sidonis wasn't wrong. He'd been holed up here running worst case scenarios without once considering how it might seem to the people downstairs. He heard Ripper's bellowing laugh followed by Meirin's higher-pitched one, and he wondered who'd made the joke and what it'd been. Took a lot to make Meirin laugh.

"Come on," Sidonis urged. "Butler's wife made cookies. Levo _and_ dextro."

Garrus snorted, letting himself be amused. "You've got to be kidding. Are they good?"

"Nah, they're awful. No idea what the hell she put in 'em. Don't think they'll kill us, though, and she went to all the trouble. She even iced them different colors. Red and blue." Sidonis scratched the back of his neck and winced. "'Course, I'm not sure she _meant_ to make the icing reminiscent of blood. Thought that counts?"

Garrus chuckled, startled by his genuine mirth. He could tell by the way Sidonis went unnaturally still just for a second it'd been a long time since he'd laughed. Too long. He swallowed and pushed away the memory of Shepard's laughter. Even when they'd been headed into the belly of the beast, she'd found reasons to laugh with her crew. It was part of why they loved her. He knew that. He wondered, sometimes, how she'd managed to find anything funny in the face of the things they'd been staring down. Sovereign made Omega's gangs look like children squabbling over broken toys.

Downstairs, someone turned on music. It was horrible. Melanis voiced this opinion, loudly. Ripper only laughed again; Garrus figured he must be the one with the terrible taste.

Sidonis was right. Shepard was right. Maybe he wasn't Garrus—couldn't be Garrus—for them, but he still had to find a way to let his team see who he was. He had to find a way to let a little of the man peek out from behind the idea.

With this in mind, he finally banished the map of the Eclipse base and followed Sidonis out into the common room below. He scowled good-naturedly when his team cheered. He ate terrible cookies, let Vortash win a single hand of Skyllian Five, accepted Grundan Krul's jibes, and tried not to think about the consequences of failure.


	12. Leadership

LEADERSHIP

"You're up, Vakarian. Solo or team?"

Garrus was primed to say _solo_, but something gave him pause. It wasn't the first time he'd been up for the obstacle course—everyone faced it every few months from their eleventh birthday until they hit basic at fifteen, and Garrus was almost twelve. When it was his turn to decide how to run the course, he'd only ever attempted it alone. Spectres usually worked by themselves—he knew that, and someday he was going to be a Spectre, no matter what kind of glares his dad sent his way whenever he mentioned the possibility. Garrus did okay on his own. The last time, he'd been well-past the first checkpoint when the sniper got him. He'd certainly learned a lesson about breaking cover, and he'd still gotten a commendation for his attempt.

Then again, he'd been picked for other teams before, too. And _sometimes_ Spectres couldn't do _everything_ by themselves. Last time, on Verus' team, they'd actually made the second checkpoint. He knew he only had a few seconds to decide, and he weighed his options as quickly as he could. Solo meant fast. It meant you didn't have to rely on anyone else, and no one else's mistakes could cost you. But a team was backup. A team was more strengths—_and weaknesses,_ he imagined his dad saying—than just your own.

"Team, sir," he said. "Verus Tynian and Aleena Kylos."

In his peripheral vision, he saw the latter startle. Garrus had never even talked to her before, but he'd been in the audience for her last solo through the course and she was great. Way better than Renix or Anturo would've been. He didn't know how she'd take orders, but to have someone with her skills on his squad was worth the risk. And as for Verus, Garrus wasn't stupid. Sometimes he hung out with Renix Pollus, but he wouldn't put the guy on his team for anything. Renix couldn't even _pretend_ to take orders; he was always getting into trouble with school administration. Maybe Verus wasn't academically inclined, but he was big and solid and one of the best shorter-range shots in the class.

"You've got five minutes, Vakarian," said Instructor Gallian.

Garrus nodded and gestured for his team to join him in a huddle. Aleena still looked a little baffled, but Verus was smiling. Garrus wasn't sure he liked that; he didn't want cockiness to stop them making the second checkpoint. "Okay," he said, pulling up the interface of his omni-tool. "I'm uploading a program that'll let us talk to each other. It'll scramble the signals of anyone else listening in, though, so they shouldn't be able to hear what we're going to do."

"Spirits, Garrus, how'd you do that?" Verus asked.

Garrus shrugged one shoulder. "Just something I've been working on. My mom helped."

"His mom's a tech genius," Verus whispered conspiratorially to Aleena. "My dad says she's the reason we have—"

Garrus punched his friend lightly on the shoulder to make him shut up. "Verus. Later. My mom's not here and we've got three minutes before the bell. I want you on point—"

"But it's your run," Verus objected. "Don't you want to—"

Shaking his head, Garrus said, "You're the best with a pistol."

Verus grinned. "Also fists."

"If they get close enough that you're using your fists, you're probably already dead," Garrus warned. "Last resort, okay? Keep your eyes open. I'll be watching your back so you don't have to."

"And me?" Aleena asked. She had a nice voice. "What do you need me for?"

"Are you kidding? You get the best scores when it comes to hacking, and the last time you soloed the course, you practically _disappeared_. It was amazing. I thought you could scout. We'd have your back, so you wouldn't have to worry about, well. You know. What happened last time."

Aleena stared at him, unblinking. He'd never really noticed how green her eyes were, and the curve of her mandibles was… graceful. Something about her unwavering attention made him want to duck his head, but instead he only swallowed hard and turned back to Verus.

"My mom's been teaching me how to use a rifle. I'm not that good yet, but—well, it's better if we spread out, and I'll be able to direct our path better if I'm watching from range."

"Told you his mom was something else," Verus told Aleena. "I don't think my mom's ever even looked at a rifle. Dad says she only scraped through basic—"

"Tynian!" Garrus snapped. Verus' head shot up, his mandibles flaring in surprise. "No chatter."

Verus blinked. "Sure thing, Gar—Vakarian."

Garrus shot him a smile and said, "All right. Grab your weapons. Keep your omni-tools tuned to that frequency. _Listen_. And keep your eyes open."

His team nodded. When the bell rang to indicate the start, Garrus jogged for cover. A bullet full of paint exploded where Aleena'd been a few seconds before, but she was long gone, vanished into the trees just like she'd done the last time he saw her on the course. Garrus peered through his scope and took out a gunman who'd been about to lay into Verus. Blue paint splattered across the target's chest—he'd been aiming for the head, but a hit was a hit—and the gunman fell as the rules dictated.

"Clear," Garrus said. His team acknowledged and marked their positions. Garrus took a look at the lay of the land, trying to plot a safe path. After a moment, he sent Aleena to the left and had Verus break cover to draw any enemy fire. Garrus took out the target who fell for the trick before she had a chance to get a shot away, and Verus was back in cover again before the second gunman's bullet exploded against the stones.

They made the first checkpoint with no trouble. Halfway to the second, Aleena called out a warning to Verus before he sprung a trap, and then set about disarming it while Garrus watched her six. He shot one target. Verus got another, who'd been creeping through the underbrush toward them.

An ambush got them five minutes past the third checkpoint, when all three were in completely unfamiliar territory, but Garrus couldn't bring himself to be upset. No one—_no one_—in their year had made it past checkpoint three yet. He clapped Verus—blue-splattered and grinning—on the shoulder. He hesitated a moment before doing the same to Aleena, who smiled up at him. Her smile was nice too. This time Garrus did duck his head.

"Nice work out there, Vakarian," Instructor Gallian said, giving Garrus the excuse he needed to stop thinking about the weird feeling in his stomach when Aleena smiled at him. "Didn't know you had it in you. All three of you are getting top commendations. You figure out what went wrong?"

Garrus straightened to attention and nodded. "Yes, sir. Lost sight of the big picture. Started focusing on the details. Let the unfamiliarity of the terrain dictate strategy instead of taking the time to review and revise."

Gallian nodded again and made some notes on his datapad. "Double commendation, Vakarian. Keep it up, and you might just end up on Spectre-training radar after all."

It took a lot of effort not to grin, but Garrus was pretty sure future Spectres didn't go around smiling like fools.

#

Death had a smell. Sharper than just blood or injury or illness. More pervasive than smoke or explosives. It was shit and sweat and fear. It was the smell of endings, and inevitability, and finality. It was the smell of mistakes and no going back.

Death had a color, too. For turians it was blue. For humans, red. The krogan bled orange and the salarians green.

Garrus' team had left an ugly rainbow in their wake.

Assault rifle at the ready, he took stock of the carnage. It took some time to pick out his own crew amongst the mercs they'd taken down with them when they fell. They hadn't gone easy, any of them. Garrus spotted Blue Suns, Blood Pack, _and_ Eclipse armor. Shit. That explained the intensity of the attack; the major merc bands had never banded _together_ before.

He should have been prepared for that.

He should have been prepared for betrayal, too.

He'd let himself get complacent. Cocky. He'd let himself think they were making a real difference. Winning.

And he'd failed them. He'd failed them all.

But he couldn't let anger or hate or even regret drive him now; not with so much at stake. He had to be cold. Precise. He'd mourn later. Grundan Krul was half-buried under the dead he'd killed. The exit to the tunnels beneath the base was blocked, the lock blinking red. Whatever Erash had done was holding. From the look of things, Vortash had guarded Erash while he worked. In the end, it hadn't been enough. They were both dead, riddled with bullets. Far more than necessary to kill.

It'd been vengeance, pure and simple. Hate.

Garrus knew about vengeance. He knew about hate.

Swallowing the rage, Garrus forced himself to be cold. To be precise. To look, to catalogue, to move on. He had to know what crimes the Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse would be made to pay for.

He had to know how completely Sidonis had betrayed him.

And it was a betrayal. He no longer doubted that. For anyone to have made it to the base—into the base—through the base—they had to have known everything about Archangel's operations. They had to know codes. They had to know who was on watch and how to take them out.

They had to know strengths and they had to know weaknesses, and only one of Archangel's own could've supplied all the necessary information.

One of their own.

Garrus was going to kill him. He was going to kill him with his bare hands. He was going to devise a death for Lantar Sidonis that made Kron Harga's or Thralog Mirki'it's look like mercy killings.

Ripper was alive when Garrus found him, but barely. Beside him, Mierin and Melanis lay at unnatural, broken angles, surrounded by mercenary dead.

"That fucker," Ripper said.

He was dead before Garrus could do more than reach for medi-gel.

Somehow that was worse than the corpses.

So close. Not close enough.

Garrus found Monteague and Weaver and Sensat upstairs. Parts of them, anyway. They hadn't gone down easy, but they'd gone. They'd gone like all the rest.

Butler was the last, and Garrus found him holed up in the room overlooking the bridge. The man managed to lift his gun when Garrus entered, though he doubted Butler was strong enough even to pull the trigger. Too much blood. Too much red. The stench of death was everywhere.

"Hey, boss," Butler wheezed. "T-think this is… bad. Y-you… you should see th'other… th'other guy."

Butler whimpered. It was a horrible sound. A pitiful sound. And Butler wasn't a pitiful man. "N-nalah—"

"I'll tell her," Garrus said, as gently as he could. "I'll tell her."

And Butler died.

Butler died, and a wave of mercs came flooding over the bridge. Garrus picked off a dozen of them before they called the retreat.

Let them come.

Let them fucking come. He had bullets for them all.

Breaks came infrequently. Sometimes he bought them at the cost of his dwindling supply of explosives. Sometimes by raining so many bullets down on the oncoming horde they turned back for a while. He lost track of time. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He popped stims, and he tended the dead.

They deserved that much.

They deserved better.

But all he could do was mop the blood from their faces and cover them with sheets. All he could do was pretend at dignity.

And he could kill the bastards who'd done this to them.

He could definitely do that.

At least until the heat sinks ran out.


	13. Memory

MEMORY

"Garrus?"

"You're supposed to knock, Sol," he said, without so much as glancing up from the problem he'd been struggling with for an hour. Mostly he was annoyed that once again she'd managed to sneak up on him. He was going to have to _un_grease the hinges, so the squeak could act as a warning. Or put a bell on her or something. "I'm busy. I've got exams."

"I know," she said, dragging the word into three times its usual length. "But it's Mom. She's acting weird."

This did make Garrus turn. He hooked one elbow over the back of his chair and tilted his head at his sister. She stood in the doorway, one foot crossed over the other and arms hugged close. He tilted his head, but she her posture remained closed and unnerved. "What's weird?"

She lifted her shoulders in a brief, obviously uncomfortable shrug. "She got mad because she didn't have the ingredients for skota."

Garrus frowned. "So?"

"When I told her to just go get some, she said she didn't have time because Dad was going to be home any minute."

He got to his feet before Solana'd even finished speaking. "Dad's in the middle of a rotation."

"I know. I said that too." She stepped aside to let him through the door, but didn't move to follow him. Her posture was still all wrong.

"What else?" he asked.

Solana tightened her arms around herself even more, and when she spoke, her subharmonics were pitched low and full of misery. "I thought she was going to _hit_ me. And I didn't do anything wrong. I really didn't."

He put his hands on her shoulders until they relaxed from their tense location up around her fringe. "Hey," he said softly, "it's okay. She's probably just having a bad day. I'll go talk to her. Why don't you wait here and, I don't know, tackle my homework for me or something."

Her mandibles fluttered. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was a lot better than the mess of coiled up anxiety she'd been a few minutes earlier. "I probably could," she said, a little of the misery in her subvocals replaced by pride. "I'm the smartest in my class."

"Of course you are," he replied, waving in the direction of his piles of datapads and notes. "Xenobiology is all yours. Tell me three ways to take out an angry elcor when I get back."

She giggled, and he squeezed her in a quick, one-armed hug before turning and heading down the hall.

Garrus found his mom in the kitchen, humming under her breath as she puttered. A basket of velara fruit, fresh from her garden, sat on the counter. As he stood in the doorway, she opened one cupboard, considered the contents, shook her head, and closed the door again. She jumped a little when she turned and saw him. "Spirits, dear one. I didn't hear you."

"You okay, Mom?"

She smiled. "Of course. Are you? Are the hanar giving you trouble? So many tentacles to keep track of."

"The—oh. My homework. No. That's fine." He tilted his head, squinting in a vain attempt to see what Solana'd seen. His mom only gave him a _what am I going to do with you? _look of skepticism before turning back to the cupboards. "You want some help? Sol said you were making skota."

His mom shrugged. "Afraid not. No kardus. Thought I'd do gannin instead." She sent a grin over her shoulder. "And dulcia for dessert, if you've recovered from your sister's attempt."

He frowned. "That was months ago, Mom."

"And that was a joke, dear one." She turned, leaning back against the counter, crossing her arms and fixing him with a puzzled stare. "Why so serious?"

Garrus scratched the back of his neck. "Solana said you were upset."

"Over skota?"

He shrugged. "You said Dad was coming home?"

Puzzlement turned to complete confusion. "Of course I didn't. He's in the middle of a rotation. He won't be home for weeks." She sighed. "She's probably feeling neglected. I've been so busy with this latest project from Krysae. I'll make time. Maybe take her to the science center."

"She said you—" He paused and then gave a brief shrug. Before she could ask what he'd been about to say, he added, "Maybe that's it. And she loves the science center," even though he was pretty sure Sol couldn't have fabricated the kind of anxiety he'd seen.

His mom crossed the kitchen and touched his forehead lightly, her fingertips gentle. For the first time he could remember, she didn't have to reach down to do it, and for a moment Garrus was inexplicably sad. He wasn't as tall as his mom yet, but he would be taller soon. "You're growing up so fast," she said, and for the second time in half an hour he was confronted by subharmonics resonating with something too distressed for him to name. "Oh, it seems like yesterday I was toting you around in my arms, constantly afraid to put you down in case something happened the second I wasn't paying attention. Now look at you."

"Mom," he groaned.

"Son," she groaned back.

Completely normal.

But he just couldn't quite shake the bad feeling left behind by Solana's words.

#

Garrus woke suddenly, disoriented and in pain, already reaching for the gun that'd somehow slipped from his hands. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but surely the mercs were on their way, if they hadn't broken in already. At least he didn't hear boots on the stairs, or the staccato of gunfire. Shit. He should be dead. He'd never slipped up so badly before; must've been something off in the last batch of stims—

He didn't have a gun. A moment later, he realized he wasn't holed up in his Omega base. He didn't recognize the room and didn't recognize the smell, though it was reminiscent of the sterile stench of hospitals. The salarian's clinic, maybe? Too nice and too clean to be any of the Omega hospitals he'd had occasion to visit. This confusion made him frown. The frown nearly made him scream. He managed to keep it to a grunt of pain. He was reaching for the right side of his face when a slim, human hand intercepted the motion.

"None of that now, Garrus," said a voice he hadn't heard in two years. "You've had a terrible acc—"

The last batch of stims must have been laced with something _really_ bad. And maybe he didn't have a gun, but he still knew how to take a human down in three moves or less armed with nothing but his hands. Before the creature wearing Doctor Chakwas' face could finish, he had it pinned beneath him, its scrawny human neck firmly between his tightening hands.

"Garrus," it choked out. "You're—this—the _Normandy._"

"The _Normandy _went down over Alchera two years ago," he snapped. "Try again. Who are you? Why are you—what is—what the _hell_?"

The creature swallowed, the flex of the narrow throat strained beneath his palms. He loosened his grip slightly, but only because he wanted answers. He could always kill it once he made it talk. Damn. His face was killing him. His head wasn't doing much better, and he felt like he was fighting his way through enough sedatives and painkillers to take out an elcor. A big one. "Talk!" he said, rattling the creature trapped beneath him until its teeth clacked together.

"Garrus," it said again, "I know this must be a shock—"

"Bullshit," he snarled. "Did Garm send you? Tarak? What the hell'd you give me? How do you know who I am?"

It inhaled slowly, its pulse still wild beneath his hands. "I'm Doctor Karin Chakwas, Garrus. We served together on the first _Normandy_ two years ago in the fight against Saren. This is the second one. You were seriously injured on Omega. You need to try and remember."

He shook his head, but even as he tried to push them away, to hide from them, he was flooded by images. He remembered talking to his dad over the comm, certain he was about to die. He looked through his scope. He looked through his scope, and saw a white N7 against black ablative plate.

"Bullshit," he repeated, but with none of the rage he'd felt only a moment earlier. He loosened his hands and sat back. The thing—the—_Doctor Chakwas_? Doctor Chakwas didn't even attempt to wriggle away. She lay on her back looking up at him with wide eyes more filled with concern than fear.

"What do you remember?"

"She's dead," he insisted. "Anderson told—she's _dead._"

"What do you remember?" the doctor repeated.

Garrus threw himself backward. His cowl slammed hard into the side of the medbay bed, but he hardly felt it. Hell, he hardly even felt the pain in his face. His face.

_"Shepard," he said, expecting the vision to vanish, "I thought you were dead."_

_"Garrus!" she cried, arms flung wide._

"I don't know," he replied. "I don't know _what_ I remember."

"You were on Omega."

He scowled. "Sure. I remember that. I—I was—fighting. Me and a gun and a lot of heat sinks."

"And a lot of stims, by the state of your nervous system when I got you. Not a lot of food. You were in a bad state, even without the wounds to complicate matters."

He blinked at her and fought the urge to push himself back further. It was hopeless, though. The bed wasn't going to budge. He had nowhere else _to_ go. In more damned ways than just the one.

"And my face?"

"The commander says it was a gunship."

"She's dead," he repeated.

"It's a long story," Doctor Chakwas said. "But she isn't, Garrus. She's not dead."

"So, what? She's been undercover for two years? Faked her own death? What could possibly—"

Chakwas shook her head again, firmly. "Not undercover. She was… revived. By Cerberus scientists. The _Normandy _was rebuilt by Cerberus techs—"

"She's _Cerberus_ now? _Shepard_?"

Chakwas' smile was faint. "I should think not. I should also think it best you get that particular tale from her."

"Fine. I'll go right now." He staggered to his feet, and the doctor laid a hand on his arm to stop him before he could march out of the medbay.

_"You okay?" Shepard asked, looking all wrong against the backdrop of his most recent failure. His team was in body bags, and she was a ghost. He knew she was a ghost._

_"Been better," he replied, too honestly. The tiredness was getting to him. Making him weak. He needed more stims. "But it sure is good to see a friendly face."_

"Please, Garrus," Chakwas said. "You—I would ask you not to—accusations at this point will do no one any good. She's still healing. In many ways, she is as confused by all of this as you are. She's still… putting the pieces together. You are a piece she didn't anticipate having returned. You did not see her when they brought you in. It was… illuminating. Whatever happened, however hurt you are, it is imperative you realize _she_ did not deceive you. Do you understand?"

"Not particularly," he said, "but my head's throbbing and you're talking in circles, so that's no big surprise. How'd she find me? Why didn't she contact me?"

The doctor arched an eyebrow. "And were you easy to find? I think not, or she _would_ have contacted you. I have no doubt of that. She's putting together a team. Again. Apparently your actions on Omega were notable enough to make the dossiers she was given." Chakwas sighed and dragged her hands wearily over her face. "It was… unpleasant to see her so lost, looking for familiar faces and finding none, asking for information and finding silence. She saw Tali'Zorah on—"

"So Tali's here? That's—"

But Chakwas was already shaking her head. "Tali'Zorah had other obligations. Doubtless, Shepard will tell you she understands. In reality, I believe Tali's reluctance to return hurt her deeply." The doctor paused, lips pursed as she weighed her words. "The commander needs you. More than anyone else aboard this ship, I think. You were friends once, were you not?"

"You know we were."

He didn't miss the smile that curved the doctor's lips, even though it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. "Then you, better than anyone else, know how she is. She trusts no one here; she trusts nothing. Not even me. Not even Jeff. You are a friendly face not wearing the black and white and yellow of an organization she hates. Please. Be that friend. The responsibilities she has been given are entirely too much to shoulder alone."

_My feelings got in the way of my better judgment. It's a long story._

And here he was, about to let the same damned thing happen all over again.

Of course he was.

It was Shepard, wasn't it?

It was with Chakwas' words ringing in his head that he was able to play cool, collected, amused Garrus when he swaggered into the meeting room upstairs and said, "Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

She smiled when she saw him. Really smiled. The kind of smile she'd usually only smiled when they were shooting the shit in the belly of the Mako, or trying to one-up each other over headshot counts. The last time he'd seen that smile was in a bar on the Citadel after Saren'd been blown to dust, accompanied by the insistence that he stop calling her _Commander_ all the time.

_"Enough with the Commander business, okay? It's just Shepard."_

Screw Cerberus. Screw the inconsistencies in Chakwas' story and two years' worth of hurt. The smile was all her. _It's just Shepard._

"Hell, Garrus," she said, still grinning, "you were always ugly. Slap some face-paint on there, and no one will even notice."

_It's just Shepard,_ he thought, laughing. A real laugh. His first real laugh in ages. Face-paint. Damn. _Definitely._


	14. Nuisance

NUISANCE

Garrus unpacked and repacked his bag three times, checking every pocket with no luck. He even turned it inside out and shook it, just to be sure. He looked under the bed and in his desk, even though he knew—he _knew_—his new toolkit had been piled with his clothes and datapads, waiting for its turn to go into the duffel. He had a list. He'd definitely crossed _toolkit_ off the list. Because it had been on the stupid bed. With everything else.

When he'd checked everywhere he could think to check, he stomped down the hallway.

"Where is it?" he demanded, pushing Solana's bedroom door open.

Sprawled on her bed, she glanced up from the datapad and scowled. "Nice knocking. Where's what?"

He peered at her, looking for some proof in her expression that she was hiding something from him. He didn't think he was imagining the tautness in her mandibles, or the way her gaze shifted when he tried to meet it. One hand tapped a staccato pattern against the datapad she held too tightly.

"You know what. Where're my tools?"

"How should I know?" she replied, her voice dripping with snide derision. "It's not my fault if you lost something. You should be more careful."

"It's not called losing if someone _steals_ it," Garrus snapped. "This isn't funny, Sol. Stop being a pest and give them back. My transport leaves first thing in the morning."

She rolled her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. "Guess you should have thought of that before you saved packing for the last minute."

It took him two strides to reach her desk, and he had the top drawer open before she'd managed to scramble from the bed. He dumped the contents all over the floor. Bits of stone and fabric and several unused bullets bounced and rolled. "Stop it!" she cried, tugging at his arm as he reached for the second drawer. "Garrus! I'll tell Mom."

"Go ahead," he returned, pulling his elbow from her grip with enough force to make her stumble. The second drawer's contents followed the first. She shrieked and dropped to her knees, gathering the piles of useless knick-knacks and parts doubtless salvaged from their mom's workshop. "I'll tell her you're stealing my stuff. And hers, apparently."

"And of course she'll believe you," Solana retorted, pushing her belongings back into the empty drawer. "Precious Garrus who never puts a toe out of line, except for, you know, all the times he _does_ but no one ever _says_ anything. Yeah. Go hide behind Mom, G. I'm sure no one at basic'll give you a hard time about being Mommy's little boy."

Garrus couldn't have said what, exactly, made him stop and turn and really look at his sister, but he did. She pulled herself back to her feet at the attention, and folded her arms tightly over her chest. Her expression was still mutinous, but her body language… wasn't. Not really. Her shoulders were too hunched, and her neck too bowed. More than anything else, she looked hurt.

He leaned against her desk but didn't mirror her posture. She narrowed her eyes and huffed out an exasperated sigh. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw right through it.

"I still have to leave even without the toolkit," he said, most of his frustration gone.

She shrugged again, the gesture twitchy and broken. "I don't care. I can't wait."

Her subvocals resonated with the lie.

"It's not forever."

She glared at him. "Yes, it is. First it's basic and then it'll be some tour Spirits-know-where and then you'll probably end up in C-Sec like Dad—"

"I am _not_ joining C-Sec," Garrus said, a little more sharply than he intended. "I'm going to be a—"

"Spectre," Solana said. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever you say. I don't think Spectres come home for holidays much, either."

"Hey," he said, "_everyone_ does this, Sol. Everyone. In four years you'll be doing it, too. And then you'll probably get some amazing posting that leaves me in the dust."

This got the tiniest of laughs. "Maybe _I'll_ be the Spectre." She scuffed her toes against the floor and glanced away, at some spot over his left shoulder. "It's just… Dad's always gone and Mom's always working and… you're stupid and I don't even like you, but at least you're here."

"Huh," he said, "and as much as that ringing endorsement makes me want to stay…"

"Whatever." She dug the familiar shape of his toolkit out from under a pile of clothing scattered at the end of the bed and tossed it his way. He caught it midair, and set it on the desk. Then he bent down and started to pick up the mess he'd made.

"Thought you had to pack," she said.

"Won't take long," he replied. "And I'd like the company. If you don't mind. I mean… I'm kind of nervous."

"Are not," she scoffed. "You're _never_ nervous."

He widened his mandibles in surprise. "Good to know I have you fooled, at least."

She crouched down next to him and snatched up a long ribbon of blue fabric the precise shade of the Vakarian clan markings and thrust it at him. "Well," she said, waving it in front of him. "Take it. It can remind you of home. Or something." He did, wrapping it around his wrist several times and letting her tie it in a knot. When she was done, she peered up at him and asked quietly, "Are you really nervous?"

"Yeah," he said. "What if I'm the worst?"

She snorted. "Are you kidding? Dad'd kill you. Better just stick to being great."

He chuckled. "If you say so."

"You really are stupid, G. You should try to be less stupid."

"If you say so," he repeated.

"I do," she said. "And I'm smarter than you. So you should listen."

"If you say so," he said a third time, and considered it a win when she rewarded him with a laugh.

#

Garrus was vaguely aware of Shepard hovering in the doorway; he heard her inhale and shift from one foot to the other. His mandibles fluttered into the briefest of smiles, even though he wasn't looking at her and she couldn't see it. They'd done a series of recruitment missions—the crazy biotic, the even crazier krogan, the borderline-crazy salarian doctor he vaguely recognized from Omega—but they hadn't had much time to talk. Things kept coming up.

"Shepard. Need me for something?"

Just as he turned, the board beneath his hands flashed red. He thought a particularly violent curse in its general direction. It beeped. Ominously.

He had to hand it to her: she had impeccable timing. Never showed up when things were running smoothly, no. The sound of the door swishing open inevitably accompanied a complete battery breakdown.

"Have you got a minute?"

He wanted to have a minute. He did. Behind him, the board gave a dissatisfied bleep. A few seconds later, a more urgent buzz followed. "Uh," he said, shooting a slantwise glance down at the console in time to see the flashing red lights turn angrily steady, "can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations."

Shit. He was pretty sure he'd said the same damned thing the last time she'd come in looking for him. And maybe even the time before. It was almost like the damned gun didn't _want _him talking to her. Or maybe it wasn't the gun. Maybe it was the AI. Stupid Cerberus piece of—

The door closed again before he could say anything. His console's chirping took on a frantic edge, and he turned back to it. It took three tries and half a dozen fixes before his board was green again. He left his hands hovering over the console, afraid the second his back was turned it would rebel against him again.

"Is this your idea of a joke, EDI?" he asked aloud.

"Instability is inevitable given the parameters of your firing algorithms, Officer Vakarian."

"This _Normandy_'s not meeting the same end as the last one," he said. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

"Although your dedication to maximizing output is commendable, it will not make a—"

"You need to learn about rhetoric," he interrupted.

"I am fully—"

"Yeah, yeah. Case in point. These look stable enough for now on your end?"

"There is a 96.735 percent chance the current programming will remain—"

"Okay," he said, heading for the door. "Good enough."

"Logging you out, Officer Vakarian."

"Please do," he replied.

The mess was relatively quiet. Gardner was busy preparing something Garrus was happy he couldn't eat, if the smell was anything to go by, and the crazy biotic sat at one of the tables, hunched over a steaming cup of coffee. He wondered if she was the reason everyone else had found other places to be. She didn't look up as he passed, so he didn't acknowledge her either.

He still wasn't entirely sure what Shepard was thinking with this new crew. He'd never met a bunch of more dissimilar individuals, and he certainly wouldn't have thrown them all in a sealed environment together and put the fate of the galaxy in their hands. Garrus was pretty sure the tank krogan was plotting his death. And he was even more sure the crazy biotic was plotting the deaths of _everyone_.

But what did he know. He though his last team had been solid, and look what'd happened to them.

"Garrus!"

He froze before he could pretend he hadn't heard Dr. Chakwas call him. Slowly, he turned. Just his head. Chakwas stood in the door to the medbay, arms crossed. "Do please tell me you got my message," she said. "Or, rather, _messages_. I really must look at how things are healing under that—"

"Later," he replied. "I, uh, have to talk to Shepard."

"Mmm," she said, lifting one brow. He really hated that look. It missed nothing. He wouldn't want to play cards with her. "How odd. She was just here. Said you were too busy to speak with her."

He shrugged. "Less busy now. Very important."

The insane biotic looked up from her cup of coffee—Garrus hoped it was coffee, anyway; could be straight whiskey for all he knew—and snorted. "Pussy. Scared of a little checkup?"

"Talk to me when you've taken a gunship rocket to the face and someone wants to go poking and prodding at what's left behind."

The woman laughed her scary laugh. "Fuck, no. Someone points a huge fucking gun at my head? I get out of the fucking way."

"Pussy," he retorted dryly.

Jack laughed again. "You're okay, asshole."

"He will be if I'm permitted to look at his injury," Chakwas said. "Twenty-four hours, Garrus, or I'll find you where you sleep."

Garrus shuddered, and lengthened his stride.

He rode the elevator all the way to Shepard's cabin first, but she didn't answer the door.

"Shepard is not in her quarters," EDI said.

"You couldn't have told me that in the elevator?"

"You did not ask."

"Very funny." He closed his eyes and muttered a few more choice expletives under his breath. "And where is she now?"

"Shepard is in the Research and Tech Laboratory," EDI replied promptly.

Garrus retreated to the elevator, but as soon as he took a step into the CIC, he was accosted by Yeoman Chambers. "Garrus!" the woman chirped, almost as obnoxiously as his console down in the battery. The hugeness of her grin was unsettling. "It's so nice to see you up—"

"Sorry," he said, knowing he didn't sound particularly sorry at all, "I, uh, is Shepard still in the lab?"

Already striding toward the doors, he didn't wait for a response.

Shepard wasn't in the lab, however. Not unless she was hiding under a workbench or something.

"No time," Mordin said sharply, without looking up. Garrus couldn't tell if the salarian was annoyed or just focused on his work. "Too many distractions. Critical experiment. Need quiet."

Garrus raised his hands in silent surrender and turned instead toward the armory. He wanted to avoid Chambers, if he could. Curiosity made him poke his head into the briefing room. Shepard sat on the left side of the table. He thought she was reading, but a second glance revealed no datapad; she sat alone, staring at the backs of her hands. She glanced up when he entered, and he saw the moment relief replaced resignation. He wondered how many redundant requests and stupid conversations she was forced to sit through in a day to make her look so unhappy about a surprise interruption.

He slid into the chair next to her. "You wanted to talk?"

Her smile was sad and a little strained. It occurred to him to think it was strange that he could recognize the shades of her emotions through such tells. Two years ago he'd had to work for everything. Somehow he'd learned the language of her face without even trying. "Nothing to bother you with."

"So you came all the way to the battery for nothing?"

Shepard shrugged, giving the impression that everything was fine. She didn't quite meet his gaze. "Rounds. You know."

"You should talk to Chakwas about getting that obsessive-compulsive disorder under control."

Humor, at least, was a familiar enough deflection. For both of them. "You afraid I'm going to leave you stranded in a firefight because I haven't checked the lock on my door three times?"

She didn't sound all that amused.

"So, what's on your mind?" he asked. "For real?"

He was sitting close enough to hear the way her breath hitched on the inhale. "Got another dossier. Tali."

He tilted his head and leaned forward on one elbow. "Can't say it wouldn't be nice to have another familiar face aboard."

"She was pretty… disturbed by the connection to Cerberus the last time I saw her."

Garrus nudged Shepard gently with his shoulder. "Hell, isn't that how you know she's sane?"

After a moment of frozen hesitation, Shepard chuckled. "Fair enough." The laughter dried up quickly, though, and when she spoke again, he couldn't pretend he didn't hear the doubt lacing her words. "You saw how Kaidan took it. Are they—maybe they're not wrong."

"Alenko had his head up his ass," Garrus said. "Don't tell me that's news?"

She didn't laugh this time. "My mom always said 'if you think it's everyone else, it's probably you.' So far everyone else seems…" Her slim human fingertip traced circles on the metal of the tabletop, never the same size twice. "You're not just humoring me, right? You know I don't subscribe to Cerberus' brand of bullshit?"

"Don't even want to dignify that with a response, but I will if you insist."

"Because I _do_ think it's bullshit."

"You don't need to convince me, Shepard."

The look on her face said she wasn't trying to convince him. The look on her face said she was trying to convince herself.

"Look," he said, "I was there when the Council sent you out to the Terminus like a misbehaving child sent to bed without dinner. We're out here trying to save lives. Unless you're making backroom deals with the Illusive Man I don't know about, you're taking what's on offer and giving him only what happens to overlap. Which isn't much. Maybe he could have found someone who agrees with him _less_, but I don't know who that person would be."

"Nice perspective."

"That's what I'm here for." He smirked. It made his cheek hurt a little. "I'm not just a pretty face."

This time the smile actually touched her eyes. It was almost as good a feeling as nailing an unexpected headshot. In adverse conditions.

"And it's damned pretty at that. I had another reason to talk to you, by the way." On his quizzical look, she smiled again—less sad, less strained, still crinkling the corners of her eyes—and said, "Finally mined enough platinum to get you that Thanix cannon you've always wanted." She looked like she wasn't finished talking, so he waited. "And, uh, thanks. For—" she waved vaguely at the air between the two of them. "You know."

"You just bought me the best giant gun on the market," he drawled. "I'm practically yours for life, Shepard."

She laughed again, her cheeks turned vaguely pink—_strange_—and she shrugged. "Ground team on Haestrom?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Not even to play with your giant gun?"

He laughed. So did she. And for a minute Cerberus and Omega and the new strange crew were forgotten, and things were back to normal.


	15. Overture

OVERTURE

As soon as they arrived at the camp, Garrus realized basic was going to be nothing like school. The familiar faces he'd traveled with were soon lost in the crowd, swept off in a dozen different alphabetical-by-surname directions. Officers armed with datapads moved amongst them, asking questions, checking skills and statistics, handing out information and uniforms. Different colors, Garrus noted. He hadn't been prepared for that. No one had told him. He wondered what it meant.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a boy drop the gun one of the instructors handed him. He got a brown uniform. Garrus also saw red ones and black, and the occasional blue.

"Vakarian?" The instructor looked up from his datapad when it was Garrus' turn, mandibles ever-so-slightly flared in surprise. The name Katalus was embroidered on his uniform. It wasn't familiar. "Not Kaius' kid?"

"Sir," Garrus replied, drawing himself straight under the other man's gaze.

"Spirits, Kaius Vakarian. Served with him a long time back. Hard to believe he's got a fifteen-year-old son. Damn." Instructor Katalus shifted his datapad from one hand to the other, routine momentarily forgotten. "Hell of a thing, that case with that bastard Patorus. You must be proud. Your old man's a bit of a legend."

Garrus' stomach twisted, but he tried not to let it show on his face or in his posture. It'd been stupid to think he could get by without his name—his dad's name—following him around, especially since it seemed like his dad was all over the vids lately. They'd probably push him toward C-Sec on principle; they'd probably expect him to be _just_ like his father; they'd probably want him to—

Garrus curbed the runaway thought when the instructor held out a pistol. "Dad like yours, I'm going to assume you know the right end of a gun."

Garrus accepted the weapon, checked it—fully functional—and made sure the safety was on. Proper protocol. By the book. He didn't know exactly what the color stood for, but he was pretty sure he didn't want a brown uniform. He was careful not to fumble, but it was his mother's voice he heard in his head, not his father's. At least she sounded calm instead of perennially disappointed. "Sir. Yes, sir. I scored highest in my class on the—"

But Instructor Katalus merely waved one hand dismissively. "Scores don't count for much here, kid. You've got every school on the continent feeding into this camp. That's a lot of highest scores. Someone's gotta sink to the bottom." He snorted. "'Course, you're a Vakarian. Maybe it won't be you sinking."

"I want to be a Spectre, sir."

"Sure thing, kid," Instructor Katalus said, attention once more fixed on his datapad. "You and everyone else."

"But, sir—"

"Red," the instructor said over his shoulder.

"Sir?" Garrus asked. "What do the colors mean?"

Instructor Katalus barked a sharp laugh. "Make that blue, Veena."

"What's the difference?" Garrus pressed. "Sir?"

"Here's a piece of advice I'll give you for free, Vakarian. Work hard. On every task, not just the ones you think'll lead to Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Don't miss what's right in front of you because you're too busy looking down the scope at a future you may or may not ever see. Keep asking questions. Get answers."

Garrus took a deep breath and accepted the blue bundle the instructor's assistant handed to him. As Instructor Katalus turned away to deal with the next recruit, Garrus blurted, "Then what _do_ the colors mean?"

Katalus tilted his head and smirked. "Blue means you asked, kid. But drop another 'sir' and you'll wish you were five years old and tucked up in bed with your stuffed varren. Understood?"

Garrus blinked. "Sir. Yes, sir."

"Lieutenant Taros will direct you to quarters."

He was interrogating the next recruit before Garrus could do more than nod. His assistant remained, and Garrus accepted the datapad she offered.

"Is he always like that, ma'am?"

"Only if he likes you." She returned to her cart of uniforms and datapads, her mandibles fluttering into a very brief smile. "Of course, that means he'll ride you twice as hard. Good luck, Vakarian. See you around."

"Thanks, ma'am," he said, but she was already gone, and he was left to find his way alone.

#

"You're in my fucking seat."

With exaggerated slowness, Garrus shifted so he could cast his gaze out over the completely empty mess. Jack glared down at him. "Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry, "must've missed where your name was engraved on it."

She narrowed her eyes. "Could probably manage a big fucking 'J' with my biotics. 'Course, might just blow up your scaly ass in the process. Move over."

Garrus gestured with his tumbler full of turian brandy, taking in the empty tables with all their empty seats. "Really? All these other chairs—"

"Fuck off," she said, jerking her chin at him, eyes blazing defiance. "That's the only one where you can keep your eye on all the whole room."

With a sigh, he shifted down a chair. "Let me know if there's a sudden influx of hostiles. Wouldn't want to be caught unprepared."

She shifted her coffee cup to one hand and flipped the middle finger of her free one at him. "Whatever. I just like to know where the exits are."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Jack leaned forward on her elbows, mug cupped between her palms, giving him a view of the back of her skull and the curve of her neck. She looked particularly fragile, with her narrow shoulders and every bump of her spine visible beneath the swirl of color painted on her skin. He'd seen her in action on the _Purgatory_, though, and down on Pragia. He wasn't stupid. One on one, he was pretty sure she could wipe the floor with him. Tiny little shoulders and flimsy human skin notwithstanding.

Turning her head, she glared as if she'd caught the tenor of his thoughts. Instead of snapping at him, though, she only grimaced. "It's too quiet. Fucking creepy."

"And yet you only ever come up during the night shift," he mused. "Not exactly prime time."

"This from the big bastard who never sleeps, apparently." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug she'd obviously practiced to look nonchalant. Garrus saw through it. He'd been with her and Shepard on Pragia. He'd seen what he'd seen and heard what he'd heard and they both knew it. Sometimes it made her extra prickly. Other times—usually middle of the night-shift in the empty mess hall times—it meant she sought him out and talked to him. Of course, he was never quite sure which Jack he was going to get.

"You're okay," she said, not looking at him. "And there's less chance of running into fucking Cerberus assholes at night. Since Shepard says she'll be pissed if I kill any of 'em." She lifted the cup, inhaled deeply, and then took a huge gulp. Her face shifted into an even less pleasant expression. "Plus usually it's Shepard who makes the coffee at night. Hers is better than the shit Gardner brews. Obviously she's not back yet. Who made this crap?"

"Taylor, I think. He was down here muttering at the machine earlier."

"Should've guessed. Fucking weak." Still, she took another drink. And shuddered. "So. You pissed because you got left behind for a change?"

He didn't mean to let her catch him off-guard, but couldn't quite stop the startled flex of his mandibles. He tried to change the gesture into a shrug. Jack arched an eyebrow at him in a way that said she saw through him just as easily as he'd seen through her faux nonchalance earlier.

"Welcome to the club," she said.

"Her skills and mine overlap. It makes sense to balance out a team. Not load it with tech-savvy snipers."

It was what he'd been telling himself for hours, and it still sounded hollow. Even to his own ears.

"Right," Jack drawled, smiling a smile that had no right being so scary, considering the bluntness of the teeth it bared. "Because that's stopped her _all_ the other times. Who'd she take? The drell and the scary-ass asari? They're new. She's putting 'em through their paces. Like she does. It's not even a real fucking mission, is it? Just some shit EDI picked up while Shepard was panning for platinum or whatever it is she does instead of sleeping."

"Krios is good. And he's got biotics to round things out. Tactically speaking, he's a—"

"Tactically speaking, you're still her fucking favorite, dumbass." The smile slid into a smirk Garrus found even more unsettling than the toothy grin. "Besides, I don't think her taste runs to pretty, if you know what I mean."

Garrus snorted and was about to drawl a sarcastic reply when his omni-tool beeped an urgent incoming message and whatever he'd been about to say disappeared. _Shepard_, he thought, already wondering who he could take on a rescue mission and wishing he hadn't partaken quite so heavily of the brandy.

But the message wasn't about Shepard.

It was about Sidonis.

"What the fuck?" Jack called after him as he pushed up from the table and stalked toward the main battery. "We were talking, asshole."

_Citadel._ The message said. _Fade._

"Later," Garrus snapped, without looking back, already sending a message to Chambers asking Shepard to come talk to him when she was back aboard.

Maybe when this was done, when Sidonis was dead, he'd spend less time in the mess in the middle of the night-shift and more time sleeping. Maybe he'd stop seeing ten dead pairs of eyes every time he closed his own.

Maybe, just maybe, a bullet would buy him some damned peace.


	16. Partnership

PARTNERSHIP

"Why don't you tell me what you think I should do, Vakarian."

"Sir?" Garrus fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably under his mentor's gaze. Instructor Katalus had a completely unnerving way of asking questions without bothering to raise the inflection of his tone or give anything away in the thrum of his subvocals, and every time he did, Garrus knew he was in for a lesson.

They were always good lessons. He still hated them.

"Try looking at this situation from my perspective."

This time, Garrus did squirm. At the last moment he managed to shift his discomfort into a shrug. "Callan's my partner, sir. He watches my back and I watch his. I'm not going to sell him out just because he's having some trouble—"

The faint twitch of Katalus' mandibles was the only outward indication of his irritation. On another, the expression might've been dismissed as nothing, but Garrus knew better. On Katalus a fluttered mandible was someone else's scream. Or throttling hands. Slap upside the head, maybe. "This is basic training, Vakarian. Your first real step up the ladder of the Turian Hierarchy. Where'd you get the idea you were here to make friends?"

Garrus bristled at this, his own mandibles pulled tight to his face. His fingers itched to curl into fists, but he managed to keep them still at his sides. He couldn't, however, control the faint snarl of frustration that leaked into his subharmonics when he spoke. "So I'm supposed to… what? Just let him fail?"

Katalus sighed and waved at the chair opposite his desk. Garrus declined it, remaining at attention. This time the flicker of expression on the other man's face was a smile.

"Callan Venix is a good kid, but he's not going the same places you are. I might've seen that months ago, if you hadn't been covering for him."

"I thought I was helping, sir."

The smile broadened until anyone could have recognized it for what it was. Then Katalus shook his head and said, "'Course you were. Too bad what you're actually doing is keeping him from realizing his potential. Whatever it is."

"He's only—"

Katalus swept his hand up for silence and Garrus swallowed his words. "Who takes the fall when someone's promoted beyond their ability?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Katalus stared him down, unblinking, until Garrus replied, "The superior who gave him responsibilities beyond his capability, sir."

"Sounds harsh, but it's worked for the turians for a long damned time." Katalus leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk and resting his head on his folded hands. It was a deceptively casual stance, and Garrus wasn't taken in at all. "Look, kid. Vakarian. You want the truth? Here's the truth. You could maybe cover Venix's ass through basic, sure. You're smart, you're fast, you think well on your feet, and if I hadn't seen it a hundred times before you might've fooled me. But what happens afterward? What happens when you head off to different postings—as you invariably will—and Venix is the weak link in someone's squad?"

Garrus remembered the hot smell of the sunbaked earth behind his house, the feel of a broken gun in his hand, and his father's disappointed expression as he explained the cost of flying off half-cocked. Of being unprepared. Of being a squad's weakest member. "They'd die," he said softly. "Because they'd be expecting him to know how to hold his part of the line, and I'm not going to be there to do what he's not prepared for."

"Not everyone's cut out to be an active soldier, Vakarian. And the longer someone like Venix hides behind someone like you, the more likely it is he'll end up somewhere he doesn't belong. There's no shame in finding your place, even if it's not the place you thought you'd be."

Garrus tried to imagine how he'd feel in Callan's situation. And then, with a sudden sinking sensation, he wondered if Instructor Katalus wasn't trying to tell _him_ something too. In a few months they'd be heading out to their first postings. Garrus was imagining dreadnoughts and dangerous ground missions and commendations leading to Spectre status. Maybe Katalus was warning him to think along the lines of routine patrols or the merchant marines. Or worse, C-Sec. "I… understand, sir."

"I thought you might. You're not slow, Vakarian, I'll give you that much."

Garrus nodded.

"Spirits, kid. No need to look so glum. Here's the thing, okay? There's a difference between carrying someone and working with someone, and that can't be taught. You gotta learn it for yourself. Usually through a Spirits-forsaken mess of trial and error. So far you've been doing the carrying. If you're lucky, someday you'll learn about the working. When a squad works, you'll know it. Strengths balance weaknesses—they don't try to cover them up. You see what I'm getting at?"

Brow lowered, Garrus lifted his shoulders in another shrug. "I wish I could say I did, sir."

Katalus chuckled. "Good answer. If you'd fed me a line of bullshit, I'd've called you on it and sent you back to work your way up with the new recruits. You figured out what your own weaknesses are yet?"

"Sir?"

"Everyone's got 'em, Vakarian. Only an idiot thinks they're perfect. You figure out what those deficiencies are and they lose some of their power. I want you to think about it. Come back in three days with a list. When you know your failings, we'll partner you up with someone whose strengths balance them out. Chances are your strengths'll make up for whatever weaknesses they've got. Get it?"

Garrus nodded. "Yes, sir."

#

When Shepard stepped into the sight of his scope, her bright hair between his bullet and his target, Garrus almost shot her.

He'd never have admitted it to anyone—he didn't even want to admit it to himself—but for the space of a heartbeat, in the instant before he convinced his finger not to pull the trigger, he told himself Shepard had it coming. He'd made his intentions beyond clear. Black and white. No room for questions. No room for hesitation. He'd asked for her _help_, not her bullshit moralizing, not her _getting a little worried about you, Garrus _or her _it's not too late, you don't have to go through with this_ or her_ this isn't you, either._ He should have fucking _known_—

He should have known.

Of _course_ he'd known.

She hadn't sabotaged him. He'd sabotaged himself by asking her to help in the first place.

If he hadn't wanted her to interfere—if he'd wanted to be _certain_ she wouldn't interfere—he'd have spun some tale about Citadel business to get him here and out from under her concerned eye. It wouldn't even have been a lie. He was a sniper, a former C-Sec _sniper_, and if a damned former C-Sec sniper couldn't dig up one piece of garbage hiding on the Citadel and put a bullet in his head, he probably wasn't worth much to begin with.

But no. Here he was. And here she was. And nothing was as simple as Garrus wanted it to be.

He followed her movements, heard the strained tone as she spoke with Sidonis.

"I know what I did," Sidonis said. "I know they died because of me, and I have to live with that."

Garrus didn't close his eyes. Couldn't take the risk. He didn't have to, though. He didn't need darkness to see all those bodies. Friends. All the people he'd failed. Failed by trusting this son of a—

"I wake up every night… sick… and sweating. Each of their faces staring at me… accusing me."

Erash, Monteague, Mierin, Grundan Krul, Melanis, Ripper, Sensat, Vortash, Butler, Weaver.

Garrus blinked, pushing the memories back. Remembering each of them dead. The rainbow of blood painting the walls of the Omega base. His finger twitched against the trigger and for a moment, he let himself imagine Sidonis' head vanishing in a slurry of bone and blue blood.

_And if you miss?_ said Shepard's voice in his head.

_I won't miss._

_And if you do?_

_Then you shouldn't have been standing in the fucking way._

"I'm already a dead man. I don't sleep. Food has no taste. Some days I just want it to be over."

"Just give me the chance," Garrus said, though the words tasted sour on his tongue. And shit, that pissed him off even more. He didn't want sour words. He didn't want doubt. He wanted certainty. Justice. Good triumphing over evil for a change.

He'd been so damned _certain_ this morning.

"You've got to let it go, Garrus," Shepard said, pitching the words low. "He's already paying for his crime."

He didn't want to let it go. He wanted the bullet to fly straight and true. He wanted satisfaction. He wanted Sidonis' death to let him sleep again, to let him taste food again, to let him stop seeing the faces staring at him from behind his eyelids. Accusing him.

The barrel of his gun dipped as a shudder ran through him, just in time to hear Sidonis, miserable, say, "Tell Garrus… I guess there's nothing I can say to make it right…"

The fire of vengeance—justice—he'd been so carefully cultivating and nursing and feeding since the moment he first realized the betrayal went out all at once, leaving him hollow. Empty. Cold. It wasn't even Sidonis' words. As apologies went, _I guess there's nothing I can say to make it right_ wasn't much. But in the subtle language of turian subharmonics, Sidonis' regret and grief were laid bare. He was an open wound. Maybe even a mortal one.

And certainty, precious certainty, crumbled.

Shepard sent a glance over her shoulder. Too clearly, his scope's magnification let him see her eyes, the concerned furrow of her brow, the faint crease as her teeth pulled at her bottom lip.

This time, her expression said, she wouldn't interfere. He knew what she wanted. He also knew she wouldn't stand in the way again if what she wanted and what he did were at odds. He had a clear shot at Sidonis' bent head.

They both knew it.

"Just… go," Garrus said. "Tell him to go…"

When he turned away from the scene below, Shepard walking one way and Sidonis the other—_I could still make the shot. I could still end this_—Garrus saw Krios standing half-hidden in the shadows, expression inscrutable. As always. Swiftly, surely, Krios broke down his rifle and slipped it onto his back.

_Message received_, Garrus thought. _Loud and clear._

Aloud, he said, "Thought she told you to stay with the car."

"I suspected she would need a moment alone, afterward. No matter the outcome."

"Right," Garrus said. "_She's_ the one who needed a moment."

Krios tilted his head so slightly Garrus almost thought he imagined the movement. The drell was hard to read at the best of times, and Garrus wasn't anywhere near his best. No matter what he'd said, it was taking all his willpower not to turn, run, hunt Sidonis through the milling crowds, and put a bullet in the back of the bastard's head without Shepard around to step between him and his vengeance. His justice.

"You do not realize what it cost her to act as she did. Interesting."

It wasn't a question, but Garrus was pretty sure Krios was fishing for some kind of response. Maybe it was petty, maybe it was small, but he decided not to indulge him.

After a moment, Krios added, "You honestly believe she was unaware how close you were to pulling the trigger?"

"It wasn't her damned call to make."

"And yet."

"Thanks, Krios. I don't need your moralizing, either. And if she needs a moment, I need a dozen of them."

The corners of Krios' mouth turned up, the faintest ghost of a smile. "Very well. I will not… moralize."

The tiny little smile infuriated him. "This is funny to you? That bastard who just walked was responsible for the deaths of ten good men."

"And you might have killed him at any time. I have seen you shoot, you recall. You never required him distracted and still. You had every opportunity to sate your thirst for his blood. Yet you took none."

"Yeah," Garrus said, a little too confrontational, stepping a little too close, "and you're the one to tell me all about it, Krios?"

The drell blinked slowly, as if he could hardly be bothered to respond. Garrus swallowed his frustration, though he let his hands close into fists at his sides. If he thought he had any chance of landing one, he'd have taken a swing. "Indeed. You think I know nothing of vengeance?"

"Killing for hire hardly qualifies."

"I had a wife," Krios said.

The non-sequitur took Garrus aback. Even so, he saw a hint of how much the words—four little words—had cost the drell. "I—okay. I'm sorry? That's a hell of a way to change the subject."

"We met when she stepped between my bullet and the target it was intended for."

Garrus took a half-step backward.

"She woke me from my sleep. Later, she paid a price." Krios met his gaze, unblinking. "I know vengeance, and I know when vengeance wears the mask of justice it sings a very convincing song. Vengeance changes a man. Steals from him. Makes him less than he was before."

"And, what? You think she was trying to prevent that?"

"At times," Krios said, with damnable, insufferable patience, "it is easier not to listen. Easier not to see. Weigh the cost of your words. Once spoken, they cannot be taken back. This, too, is something I know."

Garrus suspected Krios didn't mean their current conversation. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he saw Shepard's skycar approaching.

"You were going to kill me if I tried to shoot while she was standing in the way."

It wasn't a question.

Krios paused, silent a breath too long. "I knew it would not be necessary."

"You knew that, did you? Absolutely damned certain?"

The drell pressed his lips into a thin line and then said softly, "I had a wife, Garrus."

And though Garrus swore he never took his eyes off him, by the time the approaching hum of the skycar's engine alerted him to Shepard's imminent arrival, Krios had disappeared into the shadows once again.


	17. Quixotic

QUIXOTIC

"No," his father said.

Not _hello_. Not _good to see you, son._ Just _no._

The entire shuttle-ride home, Garrus had imagined this reunion. Planned it. Even when Aleena Kylos—and he _liked_ Aleena Kylos; she was smart and funny and, fine, gorgeous—sat next to him and looked very ready to talk if he wanted to, he only nodded before closing his eyes, the better to rehearse the prepared speech burned in the back of his brain.

With basic training behind him, he was no longer a child, and he was determined to start the way he intended to go on. He'd taken extra care with his clothes, his appearance; he knew he'd have passed even the strictest inspection with flying colors.

When he imagined giving his speech, he pictured himself very stoic, very turian, very much like the way his dad always looked on the vids. Serious. Capable. "I have something very important to tell you," he'd say. "Important and exciting." In his imagination, he pictured his mom smiling proudly; Solana bouncing on her toes, unable to keep still; his father listening. For a change. Because Garrus wasn't a child anymore. He was an adult. He was turian. And he was going to be a Spectre. People listened to Spectres. Even his father listened to Spectres. He _had_ to.

Instead, he found himself alone at the shuttle dock, with his father looking as stern and intractable as he ever had, and any illusions Garrus had about being considered an adult were shattered by a single word.

"I guess I shouldn't bother asking how you know," Garrus said, trying and failing to keep the disappointment from his tone.

"I make it a point to know everything concerning this family," his father replied.

"It's an honor," Garrus insisted, falling back on the words he'd prepared. Of course, they sounded pleading now and not proud, the way he'd intended, and the difference made him cringe. "Instructor Katalus thinks I have a real—"

"Dennan Katalus can keep his opinions and his brand of honor," his father snapped, a faint thrum of contempt in his subharmonics. Garrus blinked. He respected Instructor Katalus more than he'd ever respected anyone. It seemed impossible for his father to so utterly dismiss him with a single phrase. "You are a Vakarian."

"So, Vakarians can't be Spectres? Just because they never have been before?"

His father didn't close his eyes, didn't sigh, didn't give any outward sign of his displeasure or his frustration. Still, Garrus felt it. Loud and clear. "Anything worth doing can and should be done within the bounds of the law."

"That's not what the Council thinks." A nearby mother guided her child around them, hastening her steps. Garrus supposed he'd let himself speak a little too loudly, a little too sharply. Lowering his voice, he said, "You think you know better than the Council, Dad? Really?"

"I guarantee I know more than you do about the way Spectres work. You have an idea fed by vids and stories and daydreams, Garrus. A child's idea. The reality is very different. Perhaps I should have been more firm with you earlier. If you'd seen half what I've seen…" His father clasped his hands loosely behind his back and gazed out over Garrus' shoulder. It was exactly the pose he always adopted when he was talking to reporters.

_Serious_, Garrus thought bitterly. _Capable_.

_Unyielding._

"You were also offered a posting on the _Resolute._" It wasn't a question. Garrus didn't bother answering. He supposed somewhere on his father's desk on the Citadel was a file crammed full of every aptitude test and psych eval and marksmanship score Garrus had ever accumulated. Of course he knew about the offer for elite Spectre training. Of course he knew about the _Resolute._ Of course he had an opinion. Of course it wasn't the same as Garrus'. Of course that didn't matter. "I know it's not what you think you want, but I am… proud of you, son. It's no small thing, a post on a dreadnought straight out of basic training."

And Garrus did see it, the pride in his father's eyes. He just wished it hadn't come at so high a cost. Too little, too late.

"I know, Dad," he said, pulling his shoulders straight and holding his head high. "Service on the _Resolute_'s an honor, too."

"You'll understand someday, Garrus."

Garrus inclined his head and silently disagreed, even as he knew the silent disagreement was as close to defiance as he'd come.

#

The sound of the door sliding open alerted him to her arrival, but he was fringe-deep in complicated algorithms and couldn't spare even the second it would have taken to glance over his shoulder to greet her. Shepard and her timing. Never failed. It was remarkable how often she showed up just when he was least able to spare her a moment.

Not that he could precisely blame her for finally coming to hunt him down. They'd been circling each other while pretending not to since the Citadel. He'd… meant to go to her, to talk to her, to… air out some of the lingering awkwardness he couldn't pretend away. But he hadn't. Things kept coming up.

Like excuses. And deflections.

He should have known she'd only let it go on so long.

"Sorry, Shepard," he said, already regretting the tightness in his voice and the strain in his subharmonics that probably sounded like dismissal, "can it wait for—"

"It's not Shepard," came Tali's voice, equal parts irritated and frustrated, with a strange undercurrent of something Garrus couldn't put a name to. Something unfamiliar. "Do you—I thought you might know. But obviously you don't."

He swallowed his annoyance. "Look, Tali, I can't talk right—crap—"

"You have no idea where we are right now, do you?"

With a few keystrokes, he managed to stop the Thanix from overheating and going into some kind of meltdown. Of course, he lost three days' work at the same time, so when he turned, he was ready for a fight. He regretted that, too. His being too… whatever he was to talk to Shepard wasn't Tali's fault. "You couldn't have called up? Do you have any idea how long I've been—"

"Alchera," Tali said.

Garrus froze.

_The _Normandy_ went down over Alchera._

_Flight Lieutenant Moreau says he saw her die._

"What?" he asked, blinking at her. "Why?"

Tali shrugged, shook her head, and then shrugged again. She paced over to the storage box Shepard sometimes used as a chair when she came down to chat, paused as though considering sitting herself, and then shrugged a third time. "I don't know. I went to talk to her and EDI said she was gone."

"_What_?" Subharmonics or no subharmonics, the strain in his voice turned the word inside out and made him choke. "I thought she sent you to _collect_ me. Who'd she take down with her?"

"No one," Tali said. "She went alone."

He heard the words, understood them even, but they didn't make sense. "I—are you sure? Did you check with… with Krios? Samara? Hell, Kasumi?"

"No," Tali drawled in a tone that said _bosh'tet_ without the word itself being necessary. "I came running up here without making sure. Of course I checked. I asked EDI. _And_ I ran a scan. Everyone else is accounted for. I'm not sure how much of the crew realizes the… well. Significance. You know. Of where we are."

He wasn't sure either of _them_ really realized the _you know_ of where they were, either, but he didn't say it. He was too busy remembering the look on Anderson's face, too busy wondering why Shepard would return here of all places. _Flight Lieutenant Moreau says—_ He shuddered, and pushed the memories away.

"—Least you and I, we knew those people," Tali continued. If she'd noticed his distraction, she didn't draw any attention to it. He forced himself to fix his gaze on the lights of her eyes. If he concentrated on her, he couldn't be ambushed by memories more than two years old and still raw as hell. "We were part of that crew. I'm… I'm _worried_ about her, Garrus."

Garrus supposed worry was as good an explanation as any for the way his plates itched at the thought of Shepard walking the wreckage alone, finding only ghosts.

They were on their way to the hold when Tali's omni-tool beeped, and he didn't realize she'd stopped until he glanced down and she was no longer keeping pace at his side. When he turned, she was a dozen paces behind, frozen, the orange light of her omni-tool interface casting a sickly glow across her faceplate.

"Tali? You okay?"

"Of course," she lied.

He crossed back to her and lowered his voice as one of the Cerberus crew passed. Atkins, Garrus thought his name was. Seemed okay, but was still Cerberus. "You want to talk about it?"

"No," she replied immediately. "Yes. Not now. But I should—sorry. Sorry, I have to deal with this."

"Go on," he said, nudging her lightly with his elbow. She shuddered, but at least her paralysis broke at the contact. Though he couldn't read the expression behind the clouded glass of her faceplate, something about the tilt of her head screamed her distress. "Hey, it's okay, Tali. Whatever it is. We'll figure it out."

"I don't know," she said. "But thank you. Don't—don't tell Shepard? I'll—I'll send her a message when I'm ready to talk about it."

She disappeared into the elevator without another word.

As he sat in the hold, glaring at the empty spot where a Kodiak should have been, he let himself wonder what Tali's message had said, but he couldn't quite figure what might've so upset her. He'd ask later. She was his friend, and—

He'd ask later. He owed her that much. Just like he owed Shepard. Discomfort be damned.

Just as he was contemplating hijacking the Hammerhead to follow in Shepard's footsteps, the rumble of the returning Kodiak brought him to his feet. The shuttle had barely finished docking procedure before the hatch opened and Shepard half-stumbled, half-fell into the hold, scrabbling at her helmet.

She never liked wearing it, sure, but this was something else entirely. Even halfway across the room he could hear the ragged wheeze of her breathing. His visor told him her heart rate was off the charts. He recognized blind panic when he saw it. Her efforts to remove the offending piece of armor were hampered by a handful of silver chains looped around one hand and another helmet tucked under her other arm she seemed strangely unwilling to drop.

Garrus crossed the hold at a jog and reached for the clasps to release the helmet. Shepard jerked away from him at first, her startled cry muffled, but then her too-wide eyes met his through the faceplate and she stilled long enough to let him finish his work.

Even after the helmet was off, clutched in Garrus' hands like an offering, her breathing remained strained and strange.

"Sorry," she gasped, bent at the waist with her hands propped against her knees for support, the other helmet still held between elbow and waist. "I just—I could hear myself. I needed to—I could hear myself. Breathing. You know."

He did, though he was embarrassed to admit it'd taken her words to spell it out for him. Only then did he really look at the second helmet. Like the one he held, it was black. Same size. Same shape. Chips of red paint barely clinging to the ceramic. Looked like it'd been through hell.

"Shit," he said out loud, though he'd meant it to stay silent.

"That's about right," she agreed, pushing herself upright. Her stats still weren't normal, but at least she didn't seem likely to either faint or die of a heart attack right in front of him anymore. She shifted the battered helmet in her arms, holding it away from her body. She didn't look at it. Neither did he.

Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Why'd you go?"

It was the wrong question. She stiffened. "Because I had to."

"Why didn't you take someone with you? Tali? Me? We knew those people. We knew that ship." Even as he spoke, he heard the accusation in his tone. For a split second he let himself believe she wouldn't notice.

She did, of course. "Because I didn't."

"Shepard…"

Her reply was cold. "No hostiles. Backup wasn't necessary."

"You didn't have to go alone. We're your frie—"

"_Enough_, Vakarian," she snapped, and maybe she wasn't wearing her helmet, but the Commander Shepard armor was entirely back in place. "Hackett asked me to go, so I went. My call to make. It's done now. It's over." She sighed, finally looking down at the helmet in her arms. Then, without looking at him, all the venom vanished, she added, "I thought the families of the lost deserved the closure." She held up her fistful of dog-tags and they jangled discordantly against one another. "Guess I thought I did, too."

"Yours?"

"No," she said. "Doesn't matter. Stupid thing to care about, anyway."

He doubted that. The little pieces of metal meant something. She'd never gone without them, before. He wondered if she felt their loss the same way he did when he looked at his face and saw the shrapnel-tattered remains of his markings. Wondered maybe if that was why she still wore her N7 and let people call her Commander, even though—if Alenko's attitude on Horizon was any gauge—the Alliance had so decidedly washed their hands of her. "Not that stupid."

"It's fine. I'm fine." She bowed her head, glaring down at the things she'd rescued from the planet's surface. Memories. Ghosts. "You'll never guess what survived intact, after all." When she lifted her chin again, her lips were pulled into a weak smile, but the shine in her eyes wasn't mirth. "The damned Mako."

He snorted, almost amused, even though he knew humor as deflection when he saw it. Hell. He'd practically invented it. "Of course."

"Thought about recovering it, but…" she glanced down at the dog-tags again, at the helmet he couldn't bear to think about. _Flight Lieutenant Moreau says—_

"Yeah," he said.

"Best to let those sleeping dogs lie."

And though he wasn't familiar with the idiom, her meaning was clear enough.

"Yeah," he repeated. "Shepard?"

She glanced up at him and raised her eyebrows in wary question, and though she looked okay and her stats were back to normal and her breathing was no longer labored, for some reason it wasn't Anderson and his grim tidings Garrus remembered. It was Wrex in the hold after Virmire, after Williams, saying, _She's not fine. Says she is, but she isn't._

Garrus swallowed hard, mandibles fluttering. He couldn't have said why he was nervous, really. He kept seeing the way she half-fell out of the Kodiak, alone. And frightened, whether she admitted it or not. It _bothered _him, thinking of her alone and frightened, telling everyone she was fine because she had to be. "Can I talk to you about firing algorithms?"

Her eyes widened just enough to indicate she, too, remembered sitting in the belly of the Mako, trying to write the first of her commanding officer's letters of condolence. "Yeah," she said, accompanied by a slightly stronger smile, "sounds good. Talk firing algorithms, big guy."

So he did. And he kept on talking, because she needed him to.


	18. Research

RESEARCH

"So, you want to talk about it?" Garrus asked, leaning against the frame of his sister's bedroom door.

Solana glared up at him with such fierce disapproval, Garrus found himself wanting to step back. He didn't, of course. She was barely fourteen years old, after all, and he was a battle-proven member of the turian military, who'd actually received a commendation on his first tour. He wasn't scared of her. Even if her current expression said she'd have taken his head off if she thought she could do it without facing repercussions.

(And sure, fine, maybe the only battle he'd seen had been over almost before he realized it'd begun, but Gunnery Chief Tarkus—and even Captain Korren—had praised Garrus' optimization of the guns, and claimed those guns had been a big part of how easily they took down the slaver base trying to set up shop on Digeris. So. It counted. And the commendation in his file definitely counted.)

"No," she said. "I wanted to talk about it years ago, but somebody's been too busy. So now I think I'll just keep it to myself."

"Come on, Sol. You know where I've been, and you know why I've been busy."

Mandibles still pulled tight to her face, she turned away and began flipping through the stack of datapads on her desk. She couldn't have said _go away_ any louder if she'd shouted it, but still he lingered. Years ago? What'd she wanted to talk about—not the thing when she thought there was something wrong with their mother? He shook his head, even though she wasn't looking at him to see it.

"Solana?"

She ignored him, bringing up her omni-tool interface to type something. He couldn't make it out from his spot near the door, so he took a few steps closer, only to have Solana growl a string of obscenities he was sure he hadn't known at her age, and shut the interface down again.

"Spirits, Garrus. Can't you take a hint? I don't want to talk. I definitely don't want to talk to _you_. You'll be gone again in a week. There's no _point._"

He only half-heard her, since he was transfixed by the beyond-weird contents of her desk—obscure medical texts and pictures and a painfully accurate, life-sized model of a turian brain. At her age, he'd been thinking about guns and skycars and girls and getting the best results on the obstacle course. "What is all this?" he asked, lifting a datapad. He managed to pick out a few words—Grannik's Disease, Corpalis Syndrome, tumors, Karris, Vatak's—before his sister snatched it out of his hand.

"Research," she snapped, opening a drawer and sliding the datapad inside. "And none of your business."

"Mom's worried about you."

"Right," Solana said, her subharmonics absolutely dripping with bitterness. And something else. Something darker. Something buried. "_Mom's_ worried about _me._"

Garrus swallowed, shifting uncomfortably. He hardly recognized the girl sitting hunched at her desk. Sure, he'd taken leave with some friends a couple of times instead of coming home, but… everyone did it. Hell. He hadn't expected to come back to a complete stranger wearing his sister's face. With an edge of accusation, he said, "She says you've been ditching school."

"Do we really have to have this conversation? Fine. You're right. Mom's right. I've been ditching school. Because school is _boring_, and I learned all this crap _ages_ ago on my own. There's nothing wrong with my grades, and I never miss tests or obstacle course trials. My ass just isn't planted in my seat as much as everyone else would like it to be."

"If you're that bored, you could ask for extra credit—"

Her mandibles twitched dismissively. "Yeah, thanks, no. I don't want to write papers on the changing face of intergalactic politics or design scope mods the school will then claim the patent to and sell, without giving me a single credit of the profit."

He sighed, trying to rein in his frustration and failing miserably. "So you'd rather sit at home and study rare diseases? Are you—is that what you want to do? Medicine? Do extra credit projects in medicine, then. You might as well have it count toward something."

Solana pushed her chair back from the desk and spun around to face him. "You're so stupid, G. You and Dad and even Mom. You're all so _dumb_. I'm here _all the time_. I see it _all the time._ I told you _years_ ago something was wrong, but you didn't listen and Dad _won't_ listen and what am I supposed to do? Just tell Mom I'm pretty sure she's in early stages of something that's going to kill her? Something with no cure? Why does it fall to me? I'm a _kid. _It's not _fair. _She's my _mom._"

He opened his mouth—to say something, to admonish her, to… something—but the look on her face silenced him. It wasn't a child's expression. It wasn't the look of a kid trying to pull one over or deflect blame. She looked sad and she looked scared and she looked far, far too old. Reaching behind her, she lifted another datapad and tossed it his way. For a second, he thought he was going to miss. He fumbled, but managed to catch it again before it crashed to the ground.

"I've seen every single one of the early warning signs," Solana said. "And before you ask, yes, I did tell Dad, and no, he didn't believe me. He'll hunt a damned criminal from one end of the Citadel to the other, looking for even the tiniest grains of proof, but he won't acknowledge the thing staring him right in the face, because it's Mom. Ignoring it's not going to make it go away."

"Sol—"

"Read it," she snapped. "Read it, and watch Mom for the next week, and then tell me I'm wrong. I mean it, G. Pay attention for a fucking change."

"I always pay attention," he insisted, bristling.

Solana huffed an exasperated breath and pulled herself back to her desk. "Whatever. I don't mean gun mods or skycars or strutting around in your fancy uniform. Pay attention to something that _matters_."

Garrus glanced down at the datapad, mostly because he wanted the excuse not to see the way his sister looked at him.

_Corpalis Syndrome: Facts and Fiction_, it said. _Know the Difference._

#

"Ahh," Mordin said, without looking up. "Yes. Have been expecting you."

Garrus blinked and shifted his weight, caught off-guard. "Sorry. Did I… miss an appointment?"

Mordin glanced up, smiled slightly, blinked, and returned his attention to whatever he was typing. "Spoke with Shepard," he said. "Assumed you might have similar concerns. Wrong?"

Garrus was grateful for the salarian's distraction when he was completely unable to school his expression into nonchalance. His mandibles flared in surprise, even as his stomach twisted. If Shepard was talking to… to _doctors_ she must be… well. Either genuinely interested or genuinely terrified. Or maybe both. His own preliminary research had yielded a great deal of exaggerated pornography and not a few (also exaggerated, he felt certain) horror stories of interspecies, uh, activities gone wrong, but—

His omni-tool beeped and he pulled up the interface out of habit. The message was from Mordin, and came with a whole host of attachments. Curious against his better judgement, he opened one of them. And stared. "That's… helpful," Garrus said, subharmonics pitched a little high. "But… I, uh. Okay. Yeah, that's… not… crap, Mordin, this is definitely not what I came in here—whoa, can they really _do_ that? You've got to be _kidding_."

Finally, Mordin let the omni-tool interface vanish. Garrus shut his down as well, though the contortions of the previous image… lingered, somewhat. _Neither the time nor the place, Vakarian._

_Still, d'you suppose Shepard's that—I mean, that is _really_ flexible. And she did say—_

_Time. Place._

"Strange," Mordin mused. "Confusion genuine. Something else? Doctor Chakwas more capable in matters concerning injury. Assure you, human and turian intercourse rare but not unheard of. Must take… precautions. Will forward applicable information—diagrams, comfortable positions—"

"Mordin. Stop. Please."

Mordin blinked rapidly several times—in irritation, Garrus thought—but fell silent. Garrus reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not… I'm not here about Shepard. I, uh, was going to handle that on my… you know, on my own. It's about—look, it's something I'd rather stay between us."

Mordin folded his arms and nodded. "Of course. Unless… is mission affected?"

Garrus shook his head, pacing to the far end of the lab. He was aware of the eyes on his back. Made his plates itch. But Mordin—hell. He was as close a thing to a friend as Garrus had these days, wasn't he? And Shepard liked him. Well. Trusted him, at least. Enough to talk about—_things_, evidently.

"It's nothing to do with the mission," Garrus said. "It's—look, I don't suppose you have any connections at the Helos Medical Institute?"

"Helos, Helos," Mordin muttered, once again accessing his omni-tool. "Salarian medical center studying rare disease. Focus on Corpalis Syndrome? Corpalis. Corpalis. Very rare. Severe neurological degeneration. Ugly disease. Affects turians only. Ahh. Concern for self? No. Would likely have shown symptoms. Scores exemplary. Marksmanship second to none. Concern for—"

"My mother," Garrus interrupted. "The concern's for my mother. My sister says… well. They've tried everything else."

For some reason, even though of course Garrus had known about his mother's worsening condition for years—bad news was nothing new, nothing unexpected at this point—the weight of Mordin's gaze—understanding without pity—was enough to wring forth emotion he'd thought long buried, long dealt with. He knew if he spoke, his subvocals would thrum with the low keening of grief. All over again.

He wondered if his mother would even recognize him, the next time he saw her.

He wondered if there'd even _be_ a next time.

Mordin, however, spoke before Garrus had to. Brisk. Businesslike. Exactly what Garrus needed. "Will make calls. Have connections in Special Tasks. May prove useful." Mordin inhaled here, and glanced around the lab as though looking for something. "Collector tissue. Invaluable for particular branch of research. Have more than I need. Suspect Helos might accept donation in lieu of credits. Worth asking. Certain Shepard would not mind. Good cause."

For a moment—a relieved, broken, heartbreaking moment—Garrus buried his face in his hands. Eyes closed, he took several deep breaths, trying to collect himself. He should have gone back. Instead of wasting his time on Sidonis, instead of hunting ghosts—he should have asked Shepard to pause at Palaven. She'd have done it. He knew that. Of course he knew that. But he'd chosen revenge. Thwarted revenge, at that. Empty revenge. And now it was too late. Palaven was on the other side of the galaxy and the Omega-4 Relay loomed large. Too late. He was always too damned late.

He opened his eyes when Mordin laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Not impossible," Mordin said softly. "Merely difficult."

Garrus swallowed hard and flicked his mandibles into a brief smile. "So. Just like every other damned thing we do around here?"

Mordin's answering smile was kind. And still untainted by pity. "Indeed."

Mordin turned away, then, and Garrus recognized the attempt to give him privacy. He straightened his shoulders and stiffened his spine. Bad odds had never scared him before. Seemed foolish to start now. "Thanks," he said, and his voice didn't waver. "I appreciate the help."

"And Garrus?" Mordin called, turning to glance at Garrus over his shoulder. Garrus paused at the threshold of the lab. "Suggest mood music and alcohol. Prevalent parts of human mating ritual. Familiar. Safe."

"Mood music," Garrus repeated. "Uh. Alcohol. Sure. Uh. Thanks. Again."

Mordin raised a hand in a gesture half-wave and half-shrug, and before he turned around again, Garrus thought he saw the salarian smiling.


	19. Steam

STEAM

"Vakarian."

"Kylos."

"Still looking to settle this in the ring?"

"'Course," he replied, drawling the word, dragging it out. "But only if you're still up for the public embarrassment."

She smirked. He liked her smirk. Always had. It'd been a bit of a surprise—a good surprise, but still—when he showed up for his first day on the _Eyprus_ and Aleena Kylos tripped him (physically) in the mess to say hello. It'd been so good to see her he hadn't even retaliated for ending up facedown in front of his new crew ten minutes into his first shift. Besides, she'd been the one to help him up, too, and that'd brought her close. She'd smirked, winking one of her pretty eyes, and just like that he'd been accepted.

She had unique eyes. Green wasn't an uncommon color, but hers were freckled with gold. Always made him want to look twice. Look longer.

Not unlike he was doing now. Damn.

"See something you like, soldier?" she asked, leaning close enough for him to make out each and every one of the flecks in her eyes. "Sure it's the ring you want to take this to?"

He forced a smirk of his own. "You wish, Leena."

She regarded him carefully, raking her cool gaze from talon-tip to fringe and down again. He told himself he was imagining the way her attention seemed to linger at his waist. "Nah," she said, "but I think _you_ do."

She sauntered away before he could find words to reply—so damned infuriating; _no one_ got the last word on him more often than Aleena Kylos did—and he was sure she put an extra swagger in her step just to taunt him.

It did obscene things to the curve of _her_ waist.

Glancing over her shoulder, she caught him staring—Spirits, he was _really staring_—and she laughed. "Later, Vakarian. It'll be a shame to wipe the floor with you."

"You wish, Leena," he repeated a little lamely, thinking _you wish, Vakarian. Damn, do you wish._

Even with her needling and teasing and endless attempts to get a rise of of him, he was going to be sad when this tour ended.

As it happened, their sparring match was much more even than he'd anticipated. They'd known each other too long. Every once in a while, she pulled some move he had to admire because it proved how far she'd come, but then the next round he flipped the tables and did the same. By the ninth, they were breathing heavily and pulling out tricks they both knew would never work. "Oh, come on, Kylos," he growled in her ear. "You used to try this same thing in sparring class when we were twelve. Didn't work then; not going to work now."

"Yeah?" she gasped, slithering out of his grasp. "Wouldn't be so sure. You were faster then. Slowing down in your old age?"

He chuckled instead of letting her goading work against him, and after a few more dogged attempts on either side, the judge called the contest a draw.

Maybe Kylos was too winded to saunter, but her mandibles flared into a brief grin, and she grabbed his wrist before he could leave the ring. Eyes on his, she leaned close and whispered, "Good match."

"Really?" he drawled. Or attempted to drawl. If he was honest, it probably sounded more like a gasp. "You're okay with a draw?"

She laughed. A couple of lingering spectators looked their way, but she waited until they turned around again before murmuring, "Who said anything about a draw?"

"The judge just—oh. _Oh._"

He blinked at her, and she dropped her hand from his wrist, her slim fingers slipping past his defenses to graze his waist. He didn't quite shiver, but there was no way she missed his reaction to her touch. "What do you say, Garrus? My quarters? See which one of us… comes out on top? Blow off steam before we hit those batarian bastards tomorrow?"

Of course, he didn't have to say anything at all. He was pretty sure his answer was written all over his face. Her smile turned softer, more genuine, and just for a second—a split second, no more than a heartbeat, so quick he'd have missed it if she weren't standing so close—he was sure he saw relief in her gold-flecked eyes.

As it happened, the tiebreaker was just as even a match. More fun, though. Definitely more satisfying. Especially as it, too, was a draw.

Afterward, sprawled next to each other, he felt more relaxed than anyone who'd gone nine rounds (ten?) had any right to.

"You know," she purred, far too insightfully, her subharmonics thrumming with promise and no small amount of satisfaction, "you only had to ask. All that posturing was hardly necessary. I've been trying to get your attention for _years._"

Garrus snorted, even as he ran one talon along the curve of her waist. She shivered under his touch, but her gaze lost none of its too-sharp perceptiveness. "I don't posture. I never posture."

She laughed, deep and rich, and rolled over to face him, pinning his hand beneath her. Slowly, gently, she pressed her brow to his. The gesture made his breath catch, and for a moment, he let himself stare, let himself _be._ Let himself enjoy her eyes and her smell and the feel of being close to someone. "You are the king of posturing, Garrus Vakarian, and you always have been. Luckily, I am the queen of seeing through it. And the fight was fun. Having my way with you was more fun, though."

"_Your_ way?"

The smirk was back. "You asking for a rematch?"

Turned out he was.

He spent the majority of the battle against the batarian pirate squad the next day holed up in the battery, helping with the guns. It wasn't the job he'd originally been assigned aboard the _Eyprus_—his father, disappointed by his lack of interest in aspiring higher had seen to that, after Garrus spent his whole time on the _Resolute_ holed up in _its_ battery—but he was good, and Captain Narik wasn't one to overlook talent when it was misapplied. Took ages to get the guns calibrated again after the fight, but soon as he was finished, he went hunting for Leena. His nerves were still singing, battle-adrenaline pumping.

He wondered if blowing off steam after a battle was half as satisfying as attempting to do so _before._

"Hey, Vonnus," Garrus called out as he entered the CIC. "You know where I can find Kylos?"

Garrus knew something was wrong before Vonnus even turned. The man's posture went stiff. Too stiff. Unnaturally stiff. And even if it was only for a second, it was enough.

"No," Garrus said, as if denial might undo what couldn't be undone.

"Explosives," Vonnus said, pitching his voice low. Garrus wanted to hear a lie in the man's subvocals, was desperate to hear a lie, but it just wasn't there. "Hidden in crates of food. Would've taken out the whole team. She was the one who spotted them."

"No," Garrus repeated. "No way. She's the best tech—"

"She ran out of time," Vonnus interrupted. He reached out and clapped a hand to Garrus' shoulder, and it took all his willpower not to jerk away from the gesture. "She just… ran out of time. Got her squad out. Wasn't so lucky. She died a hero, Vakarian. The captain's going to—"

Garrus wasn't really listening though. Mostly he was just thinking _died a hero_ didn't matter much when the operative word was still _died._

#

Lying on his side, Garrus watched Shepard sleep.

He knew he was probably breaking some unspoken law of acceptable human interaction by doing it. He kept telling himself to look away, to get up and feed her fish or the rodent on the desk, or to go admire her truly dedicated model ship collection ("Everyone's got to have a hobby," she told him, more than a little defensively, when he teased her about it), but he couldn't.

He was still too relieved he was seeing her at all.

He'd never seen her look quite so peaceful. Her lips were parted slightly, and the strange dark fringe of her eyelashes fluttered, though she didn't wake. Sleep made her look young, younger even than she'd seemed back on the first _Normandy_, and he found himself transfixed.

He wanted to run a knuckle along the smooth skin of her brow. It hurt, a little, to realize he was used to seeing it pinched or furrowed. Not wanting to wake her, he kept his hands to himself.

She needed the sleep.

_I'm not fine_, she'd admitted, standing in her bathroom, facing down her ghosts.

Admitted to _him._

He still wasn't exactly sure where they stood, what all of this meant, but none of it mattered half as much as those words, that trust.

Downstairs, the crew was probably still celebrating their victory against the Collectors. Garrus wished he could feel the same sense of relief. He wasn't there yet, though.

It'd been close, back in the Collector ship. Too damned close. And even though Shepard had done the improbable—the impossible—and brought every damned person back alive, he kept running scenarios, imagining how things might've played out differently. Couldn't help it. What if she'd sent Taylor into the ducts instead of the geth? What if she'd listened to Jack, and let someone other than Miranda lead the second squad? What if, instead of making that last incredible leap onto the _Normandy_, he'd watched her fall, arm extended, just out of reach? What if—

"Are you watching me sleep? Or are you just lying there worrying about something?"

He blinked at her, startled. She was still curled on her side, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

"I—sorry—I thought you—uh. Yeah."

She laughed. Really laughed, and rolled onto her back. When she opened her eyes, they shone with mirth. A brief shadow passed over her face when her gaze found the stars above them, but then she turned to look at him, and the smile was bright again. Almost completely untroubled.

"So, a bit of both?" She chuckled, pushing herself up on one elbow. "Damn. I can't remember the last time I just… slept, like that."

"You were only out for an hour or two."

"Yeah," she said, after too long a pause, and her tone grim enough to make him wish he hadn't said anything. "Like I said. Felt good." She paused again, and if she'd been anyone else in the galaxy, he might have said she sounded nervous when she added, "I'm… uh. Glad you're still here."

_I'm not fine_.

He couldn't make things fine, but he could stay exactly where she needed him to be.

He wasn't going to say it, though. Too serious. Too heavy. So instead, he said, "You promised an evening of shooting concussive rounds in the hold. And then you passed out. I'm holding my breath, here."

"Mmm." She reached for him, the brush of her fingertips tantalizingly light against his face, his mandible, his shoulder, his waist. Her gaze was sly. "That's really what you want?"

"Definitely. Nothing else on the agenda."

"Sure I can't interest you in more… research? Human trials, of course."

More quickly than he'd have anticipated for someone who'd just woken, she flung a leg over his hip and pulled herself into a straddle, grinning down at him.

It was a hold he definitely didn't want to escape from.

"You make a solid case for alternative activities," he said.

She wriggled out of her shirt, baring the swath of her strange skin. Before he could stop himself, he reached up and slid his palms down her sides, bringing them to rest at the curve where waist met hip. He was still baffled by how soft her skin was over the muscle beneath, how supple and smooth. Now, of course, the paleness was broken up by bruises that hadn't been present before their trip through the Omega-4, but, augmented by whatever Cerberus had done, they were already fading. He touched a bruise gently, and then shook his head, momentarily reliving the Collector base—the human Reaper—that terrifying moment when he'd watched her leap for the ship and feared she wouldn't make it—

"No," she whispered, as if she knew his thoughts. "Not tonight. It's just us, Garrus. It's just this."

He focused on the curves of her beneath his hands, warm and real and alive, and pushed the memories away. He didn't want to screw this up. Not after everything they'd already been through. Not when they'd survived the unsurvivable. She arched under his questing touch, and he was gratified by her little shudder.

_It's just this._

It was just her. Her hair, her skin, her smile. The sounds she made, all breathy giggles and pleased murmurs. Just this.

When he lifted his eyes to her face again, he found her smiling, her head tilted just a little, like he was a puzzle she was trying to make out. "Your whole demeanor changes when you're focused," she said. "I could say something about those damned calibrations, but I'll refrain, since it's not guns you're working on at the moment." She traced the curve of his browplates with the tips of her fingers. The fond smile didn't fade. "No matter what it is, for the time it captivates you, you give it everything you have."

"Don't we have that in common?" He didn't try to mask the thrum of desire in his subvocals, and though she couldn't know exactly what it meant, evidently the meaning was clear enough. She leaned forward, pressing herself against him.

"I don't know," she said. "Should we spend the next couple of hours finding out? You know. For science?"

He couldn't find his voice for a joke, so he met her kiss halfway.

She was right, of course. It was just them. It was just this.


	20. Touchstone

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those familiar with my work, it won't come as a surprise that most of my stories are interconnected. I like to make sure they stand alone, but because of the nature of this story, I feel like I have to point you at Something Like Home (it's here or on AO3) if you haven't read it. It is Garrus' POV, takes place in the same continuity as this story, fills in the blanks between Aratoht and Menae, and I don't intend to rehash that time period in Just Like Old Times since I covered it so thoroughly in SLH. (The second part of this chapter is a SLH moment, though it will stand alone and probably fill in some gaps for those of you who haven't read SLH.)

* * *

TOUCHSTONE

Garrus wanted to lose himself in fixing something physical, tangible, but even the familiarity of the tools in his hands and the guts of the skycar open to reveal its malfunctioning parts wasn't enough to completely clear his mind. In some ways, it was too easy. A wire here, a bolt there, some time spent tweaking the electronics; he needed more of a challenge. He wanted something hard, hard enough to stump him, hard enough he'd have to use every resource he had to figure it out.

Something hard enough to distract him from the decision he had to make.

On a sigh, he stripped some ancient wire and replaced it with a graft from his newer stock. It should have worked. Everything else looked good. But when he connected it all up and reached for the ignition, the engine refused to start. The car lay as sullen and silent as it had before he'd ever started working on it. He paced around the perimeter, before leveling a sharp kick at the still-open engine.

The car didn't start. His foot hurt.

"Unfortunately, physical violence rarely works with electronics. They're much too fussy. Try massage."

His mother leaned against the doorframe, smiling. He hated that his first thought was: _is she leaning because she feels bad? Is she tired? Should I call someone?_

She didn't look sick. In spite of the diagnosis, she didn't look different at all. Her smile was the same smile she'd always had for him, and her eyes were bright and lucid and alert.

(_Watch for fatigue_, the doctors warned them, _watch for clumsiness, watch for lapses in memory._)

"How are you feeling?" he asked, rubbing his hands along his legs as much to clean them of grease as to give their nervous energy somewhere to go.

His mother's smile turned sad. "Like I wish people would stop asking me that question."

"Sorry." He hesitated behind the car, clenching his hands into helpless fists at his sides. (_Watch for anger_, the doctors warned them. _Especially sudden and unprovoked._) "It's just—"

"It's just an illness," she said. She didn't sound angry. Resigned, maybe. A touch irritated. "A long, inexorable illness. And I feel fine now, dear one. I'm not an invalid yet. The doctors insist I will likely feel fine for years. Maybe a decade. Perhaps more. Mine is a slow-moving case, and they caught it in very early stages, thanks to your sister."

(_No two cases progress in exactly the same manner,_ the doctors warned them. _Corpalis is known for being hard to know. The worst you can do is assume. The worst you can do is take anything for granted._)

Garrus flinched at the mention of Solana. "How… how is she? She, uh, doesn't answer my messages."

His mother sank down on an overturned crate, heedless of the mess and the dirt that would doubtless be left on her clothing when she rose. She patted the seat next to her. After a reluctant moment, he accepted it. "I think you'll recall you didn't answer very many of _her_ messages, either, when you were the one away at basic."

"She's mad at me."

"She's mad at fate, Garrus. You're a convenient target."

He glared at the ground between his feet. "We're all mad at fate."

Reaching up, she stroked soothing circles against his back. "I'm not."

Startled, he jerked around to face her, and she chuckled. "Not today, anyway. Some days. Usually first thing in the morning. I've thrown a lot of cups against the wall. And then I blame the nurse."

(_Watch for abrupt changes in personality. Watch for violence. Watch. Watch. Watch._)

She slipped her arm around him and squeezed him close. "Garrus," she said, "I'm joking."

"It's just…" he repeated, but he couldn't think of the right way to end the sentence, so he let the words drift into silence.

"I've read all the same material you have. More, I daresay. The extranet is full of people with opinions. You're looking for signs. We're all looking for signs." With her chin, she gestured toward the car. "How long have you been tinkering with that thing?"

"Years."

He felt her nod against his shoulder. "It's broken, dear one. Some broken things can't ever be fixed. That's just the way it is."

"No," he protested. "They—we—No. I just haven't figured out _how_, yet. You can't give up."

Without releasing him she leaned around to level a look at him. "We _are_ talking about the car, aren't we?"

He almost hated her for sounding bemused, and then he hated himself for that almost-hate.

He felt the breath of her sigh against his left mandible. "Very well. I won't give up—on your car, obviously—if you'll tell me what you're in here worrying about. Something particular, I imagine, if it's led you to attempting force as a repair measure. I taught you better than that."

"I'm not worrying. I'm… thinking."

She snorted. "Please. I'm your mother, Garrus. It's the offer from C-Sec?"

He groaned. "Dad told you?"

"I know this may be difficult for you to believe, but your father is not actually the _entirety_ of Citadel Security."

"So, Dad told you."

"He's proud of you. You've done well. Doing well gets you noticed."

"Captain Narik said I could stay on for another tour. Maybe more. Maybe end up in officer training."

"Also a good option."

He paused, hesitated, forced himself to push on. "I could stay here. Apply for leave. Help you."

"You absolutely cannot," she replied, with a hard edge to her voice. He knew that edge. He'd come up against that edge before. That edge always won. "You have too much potential to waste these years looking after someone who does not actually require your help. I have a nurse, thank you. Frankly, I don't need her, either, but your father won't have it any other way." She squeezed him again, as if to take the sting from her words. It didn't work. More gently, she added, "You'd go mad stuck under this roof day after day. Something you and your father have in common."

She was right, of course. She was always right. Didn't make it feel any better.

"What do you _want_ to do, Garrus?"

He flipped his hands over and stared at his palms. They were hands that could hack systems and calibrate machinery and shoot straight. They couldn't help him fix the right things. "I want to make a difference. I thought—but now I don't know. It's not like we're at war. It's pirates and privateers and slavers out there."

"Stopping them makes a difference to the people they'd have hurt."

"It's only… I thought I could do more. I thought I could be more."

"And you've still a whole lifetime ahead of you. Spirits only know what mischief you'll get yourself into." She sighed. "Try not to let your father color your decision."

"He'll get whatever he wants in the end, anyway."

"Is this still about the Spectres?"

He shrugged.

With the arm not still wrapped around him, she reached out and grabbed his hand, curling her fingers tight around his, heedless of the grease and dirt leftover from his ordeal with the skycar. "It's selfish, but I confess I'm glad."

Wounded, he stiffened beneath her embracing arm and turned his face, mandibles pulled tight to his cheeks.

"You never hear about old Spectres." He couldn't quite tell if the low hum of grief in her voice was for him or for herself when she added, "I'd like to see you to grow old."

(_A few recent studies indicate intense emotion may hasten the progress of the disease. A calm, soothing environment is the best medicine, at this point._)

"Mom."

"I ran into Aleena Kylos' mother not long ago. You didn't say she was on the _Eyprus_ with you."

Garrus lifted his shoulders in a gesture half-defense and half-shrug. "I've served with a lot of people you probably know. Or whose parents you know. Everyone with a rifle uses that mod you designed for Krysae."

She ignored the compliment, pressing, "Garrus. You didn't say she died."

He swallowed hard. "Everyone dies."

"And yet it's always different when it's a… a friend. And when that friend is nineteen and not ninety."

He tried to pull away, but his mother's arm remained firm around him, keeping him still and comforting him all at the same time. The way she'd held him the whole ride to the hospital when he'd fallen from the window and broken his arm as a little child. The way she'd held him after his dad got mad about the broken comm device. They way she always held him when he needed her most.

(_You may have years. You may have months. Things may remain the same for a long time, or they could escalate seemingly overnight. It is virtually impossible to know._)

"I wasn't in love with her or anything."

"I never said you were, my sweet boy."

"It just… shouldn't have happened. She was better than that."

"Of course she was."

"It wasn't fair."

His mother rose, bending at the waist to press her brow to his, lifting her hands to cradle his face between them. "It rarely is. And still we go on."

#

"Come on," Solana declared. "We're going out."

He hadn't heard her approach, and her abrupt arrival startled him enough that he dropped the soldering iron he was using and nearly ruined his last two hours' of work. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, glaring at him in a way that dared him to defy her. It took him a moment to realize she looked strange because she wasn't wearing her usual uniform of whatever happened to fall out of the closet when she opened it. The jeweled pin nestled amongst the draped fabric at her shoulder had been their mother's. It made his breath catch to see it, and for a moment he was irrationally angry.

It took several deep breaths—_it's her pin now, Mom's been gone for months, of course she'd want Sol to wear it_—before he trusted himself to speak. "If you'd made me ruin that—"

"I'd've fixed it for you, and probably done a cleaner job than what you're managing. I don't know what that coupling ever did to you, but—"

"Thank you," he interrupted, "your input is, as always, both unsolicited and unwelcome."

She was undeterred. Damn. He hated when Solana was undeterred. It usually meant his protests were doomed to be meaningless and ignored. "I mean it. Come on. Out."

"Sol—"

"No," she interrupted. "Look, I've got comebacks for every excuse you can possibly throw at me, so we can just skip to the point where you stop glaring, get up from that desk, change your clothes, and come with me."

"I have too much—"

"Garrus. Comebacks. _Every excuse._ Don't make me use them."

He sighed, spinning the chair around to face her, but not yet committed to actually rising to his feet. "What's so important, anyway?"

She echoed his sigh back at him. Exaggerated. With a hefty dose of sarcasm. "I prepared for this eventuality too, you know. Naxus—"

"I am absolutely not coming along to keep you and Naxus company, Sol. You're both old enough to manage dinner without a chaperone."

She lifted her eyes skyward and muttered a string of curses he couldn't quite make out. He thought they were asari, maybe. Or volus. Creative. Maybe he could irritate her enough to get her to leave him alone after all.

"_Naxus_," she repeated, "whom you may also know as the Expert Advisor on the Reaper Threat's second-in-command, has informed me that said Advisor completely dismissed _out of hand_ a request to join a group of his comrades in a morale-boosting social outing this evening. And Naxus, not to be thwarted by his cranky, antisocial boss, resorted to calling in the Expert on the Expert Reaper Advisor."

"Mutiny. Should've seen it coming." It was a joke, of course, but the timbre came out all wrong. Solana tilted her head, but didn't actually give voice to the question. For a change.

It was the wrong time to think about the last time he was in charge of something. It was the wrong time to think about how badly things could fall apart, if he wasn't careful. And this time the stakes were that much higher. Reapers weren't Omega gangs. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a batarian explosives expert and someone with ties to the salarian STG and the fucking Alliance still showed no sign of releasing Shepard—

His sister's hand on his shoulder brought him out of the memory. His own hands were clenched tight around the mod he'd been working on. Behind him, the soldering iron smelled of heated metal and smoke. Here. Now. This.

"Come on," she said, shaking her head, her subharmonics more serious than her words would've implied without them. "The mod can wait until tomorrow. Your lists and plans and worries can wait until tomorrow. Don't tell me you've come this far without realizing how important it is for your people to see you as more than just… just the idea you're fighting for."

It wasn't Solana's words he heard echoing in his head, but Lantar Sidonis': _You know it's terrifying as hell when you pull this whole 'I'm an idea not a man' crap, right?_ _You over-thinking things only makes them anxious, and anxious people are the ones who make mistakes._

"Fine," he said, finally pushing himself up. Solana elbowed him lightly. It was supposed to indicate her gratitude. Sisters. "What's the morale-boosting social occasion, anyway?"

"Garrus," she said quietly, her amber gaze locked on his in a way that made him want to squirm. He was afraid what she might see if she looked too close. "Honestly. It's your damned _birthday_."


	21. Understanding

UNDERSTANDING

Even though Garrus was no longer a child prepared to be awed, the Citadel was still huge.

Especially, he had to admit, after a few years spent serving in the cramped quarters of military vessels. Even the _Resolute_, one of the largest ships of the turian fleet, was a speck of dust next to the vast, glowing arms of the Citadel.

He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that he was here to _stay._

He still wasn't sure he wanted to wrap his head around it.

From the murmurs and the strange frisson of excitement in the air, Garrus imagined the other C-Sec recruits must be feeling the same way. Well. The awe, at least. He wondered how many of them carried doubt along with them. Most of them he didn't know outside of this journey. A couple were familiar from basic. One was a friend.

He was glad of the friend, actually. Made the whole thing seem just a tiny bit less daunting.

"Wow," said Verus, standing next to Garrus and doing an even worse job of containing his wonder. If Garrus had been less nervous, it might've made him smile. Verus had grown a foot since basic, and there was something terribly amusing about a towering hulk of a turian rendered speechless by Prothean architecture, gazing about with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. "It's hard to believe we're gonna _live_ here."

"Provided you can cheat your way through C-Sec exams," Garrus said. "They don't just hire for looks, Tynian."

Verus laughed, jabbing an elbow in Garrus' direction; Garrus slid to the side easily, and the blow found only air. Verus was no hand-to-hand specialist, after all. He was all affability backed by brute force: the proverbial good cop in the making. Garrus wondered who his bad cop partner would be.

Verus was no Aleena Kylos. Her blow would've landed.

Garrus was distracted enough to miss the second attack, a swift clap upside the head. "Then why're _you_ here, pretty boy?" Verus taunted, evidently oblivious to the turn Garrus' thoughts had taken.

Garrus rubbed at the back of his head and found a brief smile for Verus' benefit. "Nepotism, obviously."

"Right," Verus said, glancing around as though expecting the other Vakarian to appear at any moment. "Two of you. That's scary. They'll probably make you a team."

Garrus shuddered. "Thank you for giving me that particular fodder for my nightmares."

With annoying astuteness, Verus narrowed his eyes. "Uh, have you _seen_ your dad on the vids? I mean, when that documentary crew got _footage_ of that takedown? Damn, man. Your dad's _fearless._"

_He's afraid of some things_, Garrus thought. _He's afraid of Corpalis. He's afraid of being home. He's afraid to see his wife changing. He's afraid of every ending that isn't his own._

"Taking down criminals isn't everything," Garrus said. Verus' eyes widened, and he shook his head, but Garrus went on bitterly, "There's more to him than what you see on the vids, and it's not all heroics."

"And yet we might all hope you see the value in taking down criminals, Vakarian, or there's little point to your being here."

Garrus' stomach dropped.

Of _course._

Garrus turned, already at attention, but his father's gaze slid over him without pausing. Garrus had the strangest urge to straighten his clothes or check the cleanliness of the gun he wasn't carrying.

"Recruits," his father—_Officer Vakarian_—said. "Each one of you is here because you've excelled elsewhere. You've been recommended, sponsored, requested. Each one of you brings a different skill set, but Citadel Security can use them all. Citadel Security needs them all."

From the corner of his eye, Garrus watched Verus hanging on every one of his father's words.

Garrus had heard them all already, of course. One time or another. About guns, about homework, about not picking on his little sister, about the importance of honor and duty and law and order, about being a good turian, a good son.

They were nothing new.

"I hope you're all prepared to work hard. This is often a thankless job, but it is always an important one. Without Citadel Security, order would rapidly lose way to chaos. Countless lives would be lost."

For a moment, his gaze flicked to Garrus'. "If you're expecting easy, if you're here because you think you can be a hero, if you're here because you _want_ to be a hero, take the next shuttle home. Do things right, or don't do them at all."

His dad stood before them, the lines of shoulder and spine and the tilt of his head settled in that damned pose he saved for the cameras. Serious. Capable. Unyielding. After a moment, he continued, "Welcome to the Citadel, and to Citadel Security Services. You'll be shown to quarters, and your orientations begin tomorrow. Dismissed, recruits."

And without so much as another glance in Garrus' direction, his father turned on his heel and left.

Garrus felt the excitement drain from him, but Verus punched him lightly on the arm as if to say _come on, idiot_. Ignoring the sights and sounds and smells all around him, Garrus followed his friend through the press of the crowd, his hands empty and clenched into fists at his sides.

Dismissed.

Speaking of things that weren't new.

#

Garrus was trading stats with the primarch over the comms when he heard the battery door open. They were almost finished—not much to add beyond 'yes, things are still falling apart faster than we can hold them together'—so he didn't bother glancing over. Shepard usually waited if she caught him in the middle of something, and it wasn't like anyone involved in the war effort kept secrets from her. Not when it came to numbers and deployments and resources.

Not when it came to asking her for favors, either. He was of the opinion that most of the 'you're the only one who can help us, Shepard!' missions could've been handled by people with less important things on their agendas.

Not that she was trying to broker impossible peace treaties or anything. Not that she was the tiny, determined force standing between Reapers and annihilation.

"No, sir," Garrus said, a little hurried, wanting to wrap the status report up, "nothing new from Menae, and Palaven's still fighting, but comms are unreliable at best. We've got troops holding ground on Digeris and a couple of key outposts haven't been noticed by Reaper forces yet—"

He was surprised when he heard the door slide shut again almost as quickly as it'd opened, and his visor told him he was alone again. He finished with the primarch, and quickly covered the distance to the door. Shepard was already in the mess. For a moment, he thought about letting her go. Maybe it wasn't important, maybe she had somewhere else to be. Maybe.

Those maybes felt wrong, somehow. He thought it was the set of her shoulders. He thought it was her pace. He'd known her long enough, well enough, to recognize when something was off, when something was wrong.

_She's not fine. Says she is, but she isn't._

_I'm not fine._

_As long as you promise to be honest with _me_, _he'd told her_, I won't tell anyone else when you're not fine._

So he jogged down the battery hallway, and caught up to her before she reached the elevators. "Hey," he said, trying to keep his tone light, conversational, "need me for something?"

Usually this silly bit of repetition would've at least brought a smile to her face, but this time her expression remained distant. "It's nothing," she lied.

He _knew_ she was lying.

"All right," he said, just as light, just as conversational, "mind if I need you for something?"

She blinked and turned her head, and some of the reserve disappeared. Unfortunately, it was replaced by her Commander face. The expression that knew she was about to be asked to complete some nonsensical, ridiculous task for the sake of the war effort. The expression that said _if you must_ but actually meant _you've got to be kidding me. Again?_ "Something from the primarch?"

Garrus shook his head, opening the elevator and gesturing for her to precede him. When they were inside, he glared away one of the Alliance crew who looked like she wanted to join them, and hit the button for Shepard's quarters.

"Garrus, now's really not the time for—"

"Shepard," he interrupted. "It's just you and me here. What's going on?"

"Nothing," she repeated.

"I thought we didn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Lie to each other."

The bowed her head. A moment later, she lifted her chin. The familiar furrow in her brow was back. The elevator doors slid open, and she didn't hesitate before disembarking. "I'm putting together the ground team for Sur'Kesh."

He shrugged. "That all? I'd probably go with Liara over Vega. She knows Wrex, and she's probably got a bunch of useful information packed away in that terrifying brain of hers. Still not sure how other people'll take EDI—"

"I'm thinking Liara _and _Vega now."

He blinked. "You—but—okay. There a reason you want me to stay back?"

She pushed a hand through her hair and then covered her eyes with it. "I don't know," she said. "It just… reminded me, down there. You've got more on your plate now. Hell, Garrus, you're _important._ I want you at my six, but this isn't the same as pulling you off endlessly calibrating the Thanix. It feels damned selfish to ask you to drop everything when I've got plenty of other perfectly capable—"

"Wait," he said, wanting to reach for her but keeping his hands still at his sides instead. "Let me stop you there, Shepard. Because this is important. Really damned important."

She dropped her hand and held her palms wide, as though weighing her invisible options and finding them all coming up short. "You think I don't know it? The turians have—had—maybe still have the largest fleet in the—"

"Not the Reaper Advisor thing," he insisted. "If I wanted to _just_ be the Turian Hierarchy's Expert Advisor on the Reaper Threat, I'd never have left Menae. This—all of this—what you're doing? This is where the war's being fought, and don't think I don't know it. You want to ground me it's your prerogative, and I'll follow your orders. I will always follow your orders." She turned to face him, gaze intent. He had no idea what she was thinking and it made his guts twist. Still, he pressed on, "If I have my choice? If I have a say? I'd be at your back every damned step of the way. Like with Saren. Like with the Collectors."

A faint, relieved smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. He wanted to echo it, but couldn't. "Put it _that_ way, and it looks a lot like favoritism."

His mandibles twitched. "Well. We both know I'm just that damned good. You'd probably fail without me, actually. The war can't take that. You owe it to the galaxy to have me at your back, Shepard."

"Put it that way, and it looks a lot like you're a pompous ass."

Garrus chuckled, but the vague sense of unease lingered. "Look, Shepard, everyone's got a lot going on. Everyone's got people out there, everyone's got agendas. But the truth is, I'm part of _your_ crew, not Victus'. Got it?"

This time the smile wasn't faint. And he was granted a moment of unfurrowed brow. Funny how a shift in expression could almost convince him their mission wasn't doomed to failure.

"So," she said, "Liara, then, for Sur'Kesh?"

"Seems only fitting. Regular SR-1 reunion. Tali'll be pissed she missed it."

"Well," she said, "at least that mission had a mostly happy ending. Let's hope for that."

"Shepard?"

She lifted one eyebrow.

"It's good to be back."

"Don't go getting soft on me, Vakarian," she said, but she wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed, and he was pretty sure that was her way of saying _same._


	22. Victory

VICTORY

Garrus checked and rechecked his pistol, listening intently to the absolute silence of his comms, waiting for either directions to proceed, or the mission all-clear. They'd been out here for ages. Felt like an eternity. Beside him, Officer T'Nara leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed over her chest.

"First time off Presidium patrol?" she asked, smiling and nodding at his gun. Hers, he noted, was still holstered. The question was amused rather than cruel.

Garrus resisted the urge to put his weapon away. Protocol won, and he kept it in hand. "I, uh—"

"Not your fault, kid. It's always obvious. You're wound tight, and if you grip that gun any harder you're liable to break it." Garrus relaxed his hold, and T'Nara chuckled. "Also, you're still taking every little thing like an order. There's a reason we're on back door duty; it's where they always put the newbies. Stick around a while. You'll see how it goes."

"Why are… why are you here, then? On… back door duty?"

"Someone's gotta look out for you babies, or we'd run through officers faster than we could train 'em up again." She waved a hand gesturing at her face. He tilted his head, querying, and she pointed at him. Ahh. His markings. "You're the other Vakarian?"

Garrus nodded once, brisk and dismissive.

T'Nara only laughed again. "Yeah, you and me both, kid. Don't get me wrong—your old man's something else. Goddess help the poor bastards he sets his sights on. Cold, though. Damn." This time Garrus didn't nod. He just kept his gaze turned out, watching for suspicious movement. Apart from the buzz of distant traffic and the usual sounds of the warehouse district, nothing out of the ordinary caught his attention. "Fine, fine," T'Nara groused, "Message received. You see any action on the Presidium?"

"Not much," he admitted, glad of the subject change. "Couple of shoplifters stupid enough to take it out of the Wards. Protective services for diplomats a few times. Nothing unusual."

"Boring, then." She rolled her eyes and languidly stretched her arms above her head. "I'll never understand why they recruit these bright, talented kids from all over the galaxy—I mean everyone knows you can't make C-Sec until you prove yourself—and then let them rot for a year in the dullest part of the Citadel. Only makes sense they'd get rusty after—"

T'Nara's head exploded in a shower of purplish, dark blood and brain matter and bone.

Garrus dropped and a second bullet slammed into the side of the warehouse exactly where he'd been a moment before. Flattening himself against the side of a crate, he raised his pistol and wished it were a rifle. Not that he had higher ground or a particularly good vantage for scoping out the situation, but the pistol felt too small and flimsy to be useful. Another rounds slammed into the side of his metal hiding place. Only one sniper, or his head and T'Nara's would've vanished at the same time.

He peered through his sights. T'Nara's crumpled body lay half-slumped against the wall of the warehouse, arms outstretched in a vague parody of her earlier stretch, only this time she had no eyes left to roll. He swallowed. Looked away again. Tried not to inhale the sudden stench of death.

"Code 98-3," Garrus whispered into his comm device as another burst of rounds—assault rifle, this time—hit the crate. The force was enough to move the container back half an inch. Closer, then. Damn. A crackle of static was the only reply.

Shit.

Garrus waited until the next round of bullets hit the crate, and in the instant of silence afterward rose out of cover just long enough to send several shots in the direction indicated by T'Nara's blood spatter. He heard a shout, but was already down again before the retaliatory fire came.

He wondered what his father would do in this situation.

Breathe, for one thing. Garrus forced himself to take a long inhale. Maybe he didn't have a rifle, but he could still use the training. Every sniper knew it only took a single bullet. The right bullet. A bullet and a breath.

As another flurry of bullets rattled against the metal crate, Garrus made himself as small as he could and brought up his omni-tool interface. The radar was jammed. He had no idea how many hostiles he was facing, but he knew their direction, and he was pretty sure one of the programs he'd been working on might be able to fry their shields or overheat their weapons, if they got too close. With shields down, a pistol bullet was almost as good as a rifle's.

Of course, it was just as likely he'd be dead by the time they got close enough for it to work.

He inched toward the edge of his cover, the charge ready. He bobbed up long enough to earn a shot, and when he saw the trajectory, he executed the program. The burst of power left an unpleasant haze of smoke around his forearm and he was pretty sure he was going to need a new omni-tool, but on the other side of the crate, a man screamed. Garrus burst upright, pistol ready. Less than a breath later, he was shooting. He saw one man go down. A second was thrown back by a shot meant for his head that ended up in his shoulder instead.

This time he didn't bother whispering. "We've got a situation at the rear of the building," he shouted into his comm, darting from one crate to another. No gunfire followed him this time. "Officer down. Unknown number of hostiles. I repeat. Unknown number of hostiles."

He counted to ten. Silence. Then the warehouse doors flew open, and Garrus had his gun up and ready to shoot before he realized the newcomers wore C-Sec blue and black. A brief battle followed, almost before Garrus could participate. The final shooter went down, and a moment later the man Garrus had taken in the shoulder was in cuffs.

"Damn, Vakarian," said the lead officer, a seasoned veteran called Toros. "You do all this yourself? One of those guys is burned to a damned crisp."

"Overloaded shields," Garrus explained, adrenaline still pounding. He couldn't have put his gun away even if he'd wanted to. "Must've had old armor."

"Look, whatever you did? This was huge, Vakarian. Huge. These guys could've taken half of us out if they'd come in this way without our knowledge. You did everything right."

Garrus glanced over at the Officer T'Nara. A medic was bent over her, straightening her limbs and folding her hands over her chest, but that was all they could do. You didn't come back from—

"Hey," Toros said softly. "She knew the risks. Could've been worse, Vakarian. Could've been a lot worse."

"And yet," Garrus said.

"And yet," Toros echoed. "C'mon, kid. Looks like you're the Vakarian the reporters are going to talk to this time. Keep your answers short. Remember to breathe. Talk about duty. And sacrifice. People love duty and sacrifice."

"Right," Garrus said. "Definitely."

He wondered if he could mimic his dad's posture well enough to convince the cameras he wasn't shaking at how close the call had been.

#

Garrus wasn't surprised when she found him. It wasn't like he was hiding. Without glancing over his shoulder, he reached for the bottle of cloying asari liquor she favored and poured a hefty glassful. Then he topped up his own brandy—not quite strong enough, but it would do. It had to do. And it was better than nothing.

It had been the kind of day that begged for a drink. Or a bottle. Or a bar.

He had this.

Shepard smelled of soap and clean clothes, and when he sent a slantwise glance her way, her cheeks were flushed with the heat of her shower, and her damp hair was loose around her shoulders. Instead of her dress blues, she was wearing the casual clothing she usually saved only for the comfort of her cabin. The soft, loose fabric meant she was off-duty. So did her willingness to accept the drink he nudged her way.

Shepard didn't often take shipboard leave.

Then again, she didn't often lose friends, either.

Maybe one necessitated the other.

He supposed he should have done the same. Showered. Changed. Somehow attempted to rid himself of the residue of battle and loss.

Instead, he'd headed for the lounge. A couple of the crew lasted out their hand of poker before departing in a hurry. Since then no one'd come in. Except Shepard, of course. He didn't have to look to know the door was locked, the mechanism a flashing red instead of welcoming green.

The lounge wasn't the belly of the Mako, but it would do. It had to do. And it was better than nothing.

"We won, right?" she said softly, dipping a finger into the liquor and running it along the rim of her glass until it sang. The note sounded like keening. He almost thought he understood it. "Winning used to feel better."

He made a sound of agreement deep in his throat. Not a laugh. Shepard wasn't joking. She wasn't pretending or deflecting; she was serious, and he knew exactly how she felt. "What's a little peace brokered between factions that have been at each other's throats for more than a thousand years?"

Her lips twisted, no more a smile than his sound had been a laugh. "All in a day's work. These days, anyway. Still not enough."

She leaned forward, planting her forearms on the bar, holding her glass between her palms, turning it back and forth without actually raising it to her lips to drink. Finally, on a sigh, she lifted the drink and downed it in a gulp. Her eyes didn't even water. "So," she asked without looking at him, "need me to talk firing algorithms, big guy?"

He exhaled sharply. This wasn't a laugh either. Or a sigh. It wasn't even sadness. Resignation, maybe. Resignation almost seemed worse. "Isn't that my line?"

Propping her head on one hand, she turned just enough to face him, her expression concerned. Downright troubled. Her face was as clean as her hair, devoid of cosmetics. She looked young. Sometimes he forgot they were _young_, still. They'd seen too damned much. He found himself searching her cheek for the long-vanished Cerberus scars, and her brow for the one Cerberus had undone. Of course he saw neither. She ran a hand through her hair, rereleasing the scent of soap and flowers. The concern remained firmly in place.

"You were friends." One corner of her mouth turned up. "Don't tell me you came up with the idea to bring bad wine and terrible music on your own."

"It was mood music."

She snorted. "What _mood_? Frenetic drunken dance club grinding?"

Even this, the safest of old jokes, felt too raw and too sad to fall back on. She closed her eyes and held them closed a few seconds too long.

Garrus topped up her glass. Then his. He drank. She followed suit.

Then he said, "He went above and beyond for me a couple of times. I owed him a lot. Never got to repay that debt." He sighed. "Mordin would count today a win."

"He did," she replied. Her gaze went distant, a little distracted. After a moment, she shook her head.

She topped up his glass. Then hers. She drank. He followed suit.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"This is only the beginning, isn't it?"

He held his reply his mouth for a long time before speaking, but in the end he remembered their promise not to lie to one another and he said, "Yeah."

She put her face in her hands, and he watched the slow inhale and exhale of her breath half a dozen times before she lifted her head again. "All right," she said, all steel, all resolve. All Shepard. "Then we make it count."

"Yeah," he agreed, and this time he did let himself smile. Just a little. "What next?"

She outlined plans, numbers, strategies. Concrete things. Numbers. Deployments. Troops. Pieces on a map, as distant from lives and losses as she could make them. He poured them both more drinks, and she kept on talking, because he needed her to.


	23. Warden

WARDEN

The last thing Garrus expected to find when he responded to the Chora's Den call—"Can someone get Vakarian down here as soon as possible?"—was Verus Tynian standing guard over his sister.

His very drunk sister.

His drunk, belligerent, obviously out of her mind on some kind of drugs sister.

_What the hell, Solana. _

Last he'd heard, she'd been stationed on a frigate running pirate patrol in the Thal System. He cringed when he realized he hadn't actually _talked_ to her in months. The way she glared at him as he approached said she hadn't forgotten. Or forgiven.

"Thank the Spirits," Verus breathed. "I thought, you know, the other one might show up. Realized when I made the call I should have specified."

Without taking his eyes off Solana—_surely_ she wasn't solely responsible for all the empty bottles on the table—Garrus replied absently, "Pretty sure he doesn't take Chora's Den calls anymore. She by herself?"

"You don't have to talk like I'm not _here_," Solana snarled. "Spirits, Garrus, don't _ignore _me_._ Oh. But wait. That's what you do best, isn't it?"

He glanced down at her and shook his head. She flicked her mandibles in derision. "You're a little compromised at the moment, Sol."

Verus began to speak, but before he could get three words out, Solana jumped to her feet and attempted to stalk past them. Garrus reached out automatically and grabbed her wrist, but she jerked it away violently enough to make him stumble.

"C-Sec brutality," she said. Loudly. Really loudly. Loudly enough that one of the krogan bouncers took a step toward them. Garrus held up his hands, but there was no mistaking the krogan's stance.

_Shit._

"I know the law," she sneered. "I haven't broken any of them."

"Fine," Garrus said, shrugging and tapping the side of his head as if he was about to make a call. "Let me just call Dad and see if he wants to meet us for a late dinner."

"Fuck off, Garrus."

"Not going to happen. You've got a couple of options: I can manufacture a crime and haul you in to wait it out in a C-Sec cell, or you can come home with me. Dad may not take Chora's Den calls, but you can be damned sure he'll notice if his daughter's name shows up on a C-Sec imprisonment log."

"You wouldn't _dare_."

Garrus folded his arms over his chest. "Try me."

He could practically hear her teeth grinding, and he could certainly smell the distillery odor of someone who'd been going hard for entirely too long. He didn't know if the tremble in her hands was exhaustion or rage or drugs.

"Fine," she finally snapped. "But you'd better have something to drink at your fucking apartment."

He didn't, actually, but he wasn't going to tell her until she was already safe inside.

She was angry for a while, shouted a bit, threatened to leave whether he wanted her to or not at least a dozen times, and eventually passed out. He moved her to his bed and sat against the opposite wall, listening to her ragged breathing, wondering when the hell things had gotten so messed up.

He didn't sleep.

In the morning, when she was sober, she glowered at him over the breakfast he'd made and said, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Don't have to," he said. "Probably need to talk to someone, though. Keep pulling shit like that and you'll end up—"

"I _said_ I don't want to _talk_ about it."

Garrus ate in silence for a few minutes, noticing that although she lifted the food to her mouth a couple of times, she didn't actually consume any of it. "Red sand?" he asked. "Hallex? E82?"

"G, I will walk out this door _right now_, I swe—"

"Is it because of Mom?"

She slammed her cutlery down on the table so hard the plates rattled. "Shut up. You don't get to talk to me about Mom. And you don't get to talk to me about this." She pushed the food around her plate a little bit more before adding quietly, "But thanks for not calling Dad."

Garrus sighed. "Does he need to know?"

She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. "I was—I keep replaying it. Over and over. It's like a damned vid, only I don't recognize the person playing me."

"Sol—"

"I know," she said, and this time all the vitriol was gone, replaced by sadness. Regret, maybe. Something melancholy. Something lost. "I know, G. You're not the first person to—I've got a… friend, you know, who's been on me to—I get it, okay. I don't want to be the person I see in that vid in my head. It's not going to happen again. I just… I just didn't realize I'd let it get so… fuck. I just didn't realize. I do now."

"I can—"

"Spirits, just _stop._ Look. My shore leave's done today. I'll be out of here before you know it."

"Solana," he said softly. His subvocals hummed with concern, and she flinched. "You're my sister. If you need help—"

"I can manage," she said. "Stop trying to rescue me. I don't need it. And I don't want it. Just… let me manage, okay? "

"…Okay."

She finally choked down a mouthful of food. "Okay."

Three weeks later, he returned home to find a package. Inside was a visor that looked like it had once been a Kuwashii, but had been modified until only the frame was recognizable. Spirits. Lifting it from the box, a note tumbled out.

_Thanks for letting me stay. Made this for you. You'll like the biofeedback and it'll magnify 100x. Great targeting feature. Also plays music. Best sister or best sister? S._

_Best sister_, he thought, flicking on the visor and trying to make sense of the various readouts scrolling along the blue-tinted screen, but it didn't stop him from using all the means at his disposal to keep tabs for a while, just to make sure he was there if she needed him again.

#

"Ahh, excuse me, sir?"

Garrus glanced up from the terminal in the war room. A young Alliance officer shifted from foot to foot under the scrutiny. Funny, how he could still have that effect on people. Garrus let him stew for a moment before saying, "Can I help you, lieutenant?"

"Have you seen Commander Shepard, sir? EDI sent me to engineering, and then, uh, Admiral Tali'Zorah said she'd just left and was on her way up here? But I've looked, and… well. She's not here, sir."

Garrus' mandibles twitched in amusement, though he doubted the nervous young man had the first idea how to read turian expressions. He was no Shepard, after all. Garrus stared, unblinking, for another long minute. "Isn't she? Strange. Could've sworn I saw her."

"I looked, sir. Everywhere."

"Oh, I believe you, lieutenant. Tell me… on a scale of clogged toilet to imminent Reaper attack, how important is it?"

The lieutenant blinked. "Sir?"

"Your business with Shepard? How important is it?"

The man's entire face crumpled in abrupt consternation. "It's Alliance business, sir."

"Yeah, well. Sometimes I'm convinced the Alliance is under the impression every clogged toilet in the galaxy is actually Shepard's responsibility."

"It's got nothing to do with… toilets. Sir. I assure you."

Garrus tilted his head. And, fine, let himself look a little menacing. Maybe a lot menacing. "And you're sure it's nothing I can help you with? I am here, after all, and she's not."

"They're classified documents, sir. Alliance eyes only."

"Well. We'd better find Shepard for you then. EDI?" Garrus asked. "Could you tell me Commander Shepard's current whereabouts?"

"Shepard is currently located in Liara T'Soni's office."

Garrus shrugged. "There you have it, lieutenant. She must be doing her rounds. Better run along if you want to catch her."

Perhaps the lieutenant didn't actually _run_ out of the room, but it was definitely a jog. Garrus chuckled and went back to his work. "How's my diagnostic running?" he asked, pitching his voice low for EDI's ears only.

"Undisturbed."

"Excellent. Let me know if it changes."

"Of course, Garrus."

Some time later, someone cleared their throat loudly, and Garrus looked up to find the same lieutenant standing across from him, his cheeks pink with irritation, politeness and nerves replaced by a glower. "Sir. I think maybe EDI might be broken."

"Really?" Garrus asked, not quite hiding the amusement this time, either. "That's a serious allegation. EDI? You okay?"

"I am functioning at optimal levels, Garrus, Lieutenant O'Leary."

"Then why do you keep sending me places where the commander _isn't_? I had to listen to Dr. T'Soni talk about Prothean artifacts for an _hour_. A whole _hour. _I have _reports._ Commander Shepard _needs them._"

"Wish I could help you, lieutenant," Garrus replied. "Have you tried talking to Joker?"

"I've tried talking to _everyone_. Sir."

"Garrus," EDI interrupted, "your diagnostic is complete."

"Great," he replied. "Sorry, lieutenant. You know how it is. Work to do. Best of luck on your mission."

"EDI," Lieutenant O'Leary snapped, "where is Commander Shepard _now_?"

"Commander Shepard is not currently on board the _Normandy_, Lieutenant O'Leary."

"What? How can she—_what?_"

"She took a team to the planet."

The lieutenant looked a little like he wanted to stamp his foot, but settled for crossing his arms over his chest and jerking his chin in Garrus' direction. "Without him?"

"She called it girls' night," Garrus remarked mildly. "Right, EDI? She's out with Tali and Liara?"

"That is correct, Garrus."

He shrugged. "Sorry, lieutenant. Check back in a couple of hours? I'm sure your reports will keep until then."

"This is—this is—" the lieutenant sputtered, "this is _highly irregular._"

"Welcome to the _Normandy,_" Garrus called over his shoulder before the door closed behind him.

A few moments later, he was in the elevator and on his way up to Shepard's cabin. He knocked before entering even though she'd told him he didn't have to, and found her sitting on her couch with a stack of datapads.

"I think it's a record," she said without looking up. "I went six hours without being interrupted, and I even slept for most of it."

"Mmm," he said, bending to nuzzle the top of her head before dropping down beside her. She reached up and smoothed down her messed up hair, but she smiled as she did it.

As she dropped her hand, Shepard fixed him with a knowing look. He leaned back, nonchalant, draping an arm across the cushion behind her shoulders.

"EDI says you may have had something to do with it?"

"EDI should keep her big mechanical mouth shut."

"I am sorry, Garrus," EDI said, "she did ask, and though I am willing to participate in your—"

"Go away, EDI," they said at the same time.

Shepard laughed.

It was pretty much worth it just to hear Shepard laugh.

"Fine," Garrus admitted. "I might've had a hand in buying you some time. Had to send O'Leary on a… what's that phrase you use? Wild bird chase?"

"Goose," she said. The smile on her face made the warning note in her voice somewhat less dire. "What if it'd been important?"

"Then I'd've sent him up here, promise."

"You know I need to—"

He reached over and pressed the tip of one finger against her lips. "I know you need to sleep. Just like everyone else. Come on, Shepard. Tell me you don't feel better."

She grimaced against his finger, her lips soft. "I—fine. You win. I feel better."

He chuckled. "Look, I know requisition forms and personnel reports and status updates are important, but so is this."

She sighed, rising from the couch, doubtless to don her uniform and search out the hapless lieutenant.

"Oh no," Garrus said, catching her up in his arms as she attempted to pass him. "You can't leave yet. You're not on board the _Normandy_ at the moment."

A laugh bubbled out of her and she let him pull her down to his lap. "You're not—yes, you are. You're serious. Where am I?"

"Planetside, with Liara and Tali."

She widened her eyes, but he could tell the horror was feigned. "You made Liara and Tali accomplices to this crime?"

"And EDI and Joker and even Doc Chakwas—who approved wholeheartedly, I should tell you. We're—she's been a little concerned. Says you're not sleeping enough."

Shepard arched a too-astute brow. "And how would she know?"

"Spies, probably."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Spies who know my sleeping habits. Interesting."

He shrugged. "Probably EDI."

"Mutiny," she said, shaking her head. "I could have you all court-martialed. Keeping a commanding officer from her _very important _paperwork like that."

"You could try. But I've got connections with the Shadow Broker and I'm not afraid to use them. She could probably make all this evidence just disappear."

"Garrus," she said, going still against him, all teasing gone.

His gut twisted a little uncomfortably. "Yeah?"

She gazed up at him from beneath the dark fringe of her lashes and smirked. "If I'm not on board, what the hell am I supposed to do with myself for the next couple of hours?"

He chuckled. "I don't know, but you have to keep it to quarters. Wouldn't want to risk anyone seeing you."

She made a disapproving little clucking sound and wriggled against him _extremely distractingly_. "Well. Since you're the one who got me into this mess, I'm afraid it falls on you to entertain me, doesn't it?"

"Damn," he replied, reaching up to run a hand through her hair, fully intent on mussing it even further. "Should've considered that."

She laughed as she pressed her lips to his mandible, his jaw, the side of his neck, and he decided all the plotting and planning and machinations had been worth it just to hear her sound so amused.


	24. Xenophobia

XENOPHOBIA

It wasn't the paperwork Garrus hated the most (though he really, really hated the paperwork); it was the endless gossip. Some days he caught himself wishing for an office not because an office would mean promotions and rising through the ranks and making something of himself, no. An office would mean a door. And a door could be shut. Behind a door, a room could be quiet.

Days like this he'd kill for some quiet.

"There's been a real plague of them lately," Annaius griped. "Damned pyjaks. If it's not the adults pulling shit, it's their hordes of children living in the ducts. Ugh. Do they ever stop breeding? At least I think they only have one at a time. Imagine if they were like the krogan."

Carala, who shared Annaius' cubicle (and his bed, if a different kind of gossip was to be believed) groaned. "No way. You want to talk shit? I was on cleanup the last time they called in duct-rat splatter. Kid was in eight pieces. None of 'em particularly recognizable. Wanted to be sure it wasn't a serial killer. No, I said. Just a fucking fan. Like the last fifty times. Stop calling C-Sec for this crap and get yourselves some damned janitors."

Annaius laughed. Garrus didn't.

Korith leaned over the partition he shared with Garrus to add his irritating voice to the already obnoxious conversation. "If they're not civilized enough to take care of their young, what are they doing on the Citadel at all? That's what I'd like to know. You'd never catch salarians leaving their children where that kind of thing could happen."

"Or asari," Carala agreed. "You're right, Kor. It _is_ uncivilized."

"Great," Annaius moaned. "Now we get a lecture on the superiority of the asari?"

Carala sighed a very put-upon sigh. "Someone's got to set an example for the rest of the galaxy."

Annaius snorted and threw a piece of velara fruit left over from his lunch at Carala's head. She caught it and threw it back.

At least it was quiet. Well. Quieter.

"What about you, Vakarian? You're keeping to yourself over there."

"I don't know anything about humans, Carala. Not much to add," Garrus replied briskly, finishing up one report only to immediately start another. This was the third time he'd been called on incomplete files and, well, combined with the other complaints, Pallin'd insinuated Garrus wasn't going to like where he spent the next rotation if he didn't shape up.

So. Many. Incident reports. All boring. Shoplifters. Vagrancy. Resisting arrest. It'd been ages since he saw anything even resembling an interesting case.

_Whose fault is that, Vakarian_?

When he'd made Investigation, he'd thought it would be tracking murderers and thwarting billion-credit red sand rings. But no. Mostly it was putting the fear of the law into the same three quarians who kept turning up on his route over and over again. You'd think the idiots would _learn._ Next time he'd—

"—Weak. Squishy," said Annaius. Presumably still talking about the humans. "Stupid. And their food smells like shit."

"All levo food smells like shit to you," Carala said. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at him. "You calling me squishy behind my back, too?"

"Hell, no," Annaius said, raising his hands. Garrus could hear the smirk in his subharmonics. "I've seen what you can do with your brain if someone pisses you off. Humans don't even have _that_. They're like varren. Mindless animals."

Before Garrus could stop himself, his mouth opened and the words, "I thought they were pyjaks," fell out.

Annaius shot him a murderous look, but Carala only laughed. "Get your vermin metaphors straight," she said, "or you'll piss Vakarian off." She pushed herself back in her chair, propping her boots on the desk and crossing her ankles. "Either of you ever seen little V lose his cool?

"Shut up, Carala."

"Gonna make me?" she asked, wiggling her fingers at him. "Bet I can hit you with a singularity before your hand's halfway to your pistol. Thanks for proving my point though."

Garrus shook his head.

"This one time," Carala went on, "Vakarian here—"

"Carala."

"Come on, Vakarian," Annaius said. "Afraid of a little storytelling? You're always happy to sit there and listen whenever we're talking about someone else."

_Happy. Right. Thrilled._

"You're an ass, Annaius."

Carala rolled her eyes. "Everyone hates someone. Little V saves his hate for the big fish. Why be content taking it out on small-time pimps and street-corner red sand dealers when you can hunt down the kingpins and mob bosses and wave your gun in their faces and maybe take a swing? That lands? _In full view of a security cam?_"

"Fuck," Annaius said. "You're the reason Varroth walked?"

Garrus stood up without saying anything. Screw Pallin's stupid rules—he could do the paperwork at home. Wasn't like his omni-tool wouldn't have the same damned files on it in a location with a door and a glass of turian brandy.

"See?" Carala said as he left. He didn't give her the satisfaction of knowing he'd heard it.

#

He knew things weren't quite right when Shepard's first words to him upon entering the battery weren't _hey, Garrus_ or _how's things _or _t-minus 3 hours to Horizon. _They were, "I need to hit something. Now."

He turned and leaned against his console, watching her carefully. She wasn't joking; that much was evident straight away. She stalked the narrow space like a confined varren. Maybe a rabid one. The kind as likely to snap and snarl and bite the hand feeding it as attack an enemy.

She was starting to come apart at the seams.

Not that he blamed her.

Not that he thought it was anything she didn't know herself.

"You asking me to volunteer?"

She didn't smile. Didn't look sheepish. She did pause, hands clenching and unclenching into fists at her sides. "Thought about asking James," she admitted. "Didn't want to pull my punches." Then she took a deep breath, raising her eyes to his. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw there, but he was glad at least she trusted him enough to show it. "Didn't want him pulling his, either."

Garrus nodded. "Fair enough. Hangar?"

She shook her head. "Don't want an audience. Jack's old space?"

"We'll have to keep it quiet, or Tali'll be down with her shotgun out."

Shepard didn't laugh. She only nodded once, sharply.

Down in the dim hold, Garrus stripped off his armor, settling it piece by piece on the old cot pushed up against the wall. She'd been abrasive as hell but he actually found himself missing Jack sometimes. Strange the way things worked out.

Shepard shrugged out of her uniform jacket and folded it once before putting it on an obliging crate. The thin shirt beneath did nothing to hide the lithe muscles of her arms. She was looking a little thin. Too much running around. Not enough keeping to proper mealtimes. He shook his head.

A shadow of doubt hid in her eyes when she turned to face him again. "This isn't an order."

He rolled his shoulders and stretched out his neck before answering, "'Course not. Preparing for high-risk operations."

She frowned and cracked her knuckles.

"So," he said, when they'd circled each other a few times, "you want to talk about it?"

"Nope," she replied instantly, sending a testing little jab at his left flank. He sidestepped it easily, and then swerved away from the rapid right-handed blow she'd had in reserve. "Don't fuck around, Garrus," she snapped. "I left myself open. You should've taken that shot."

"Figured you had something planned," he replied, catching another of her blows with his open palm and using the momentum to twist her around. "Since you're not usually that sloppy." She jumped back before he could do anything with the advantage. "How about you stick to your tactics and I stick to mine?"

They stopped talking then, circling and assessing and occasionally launching attacks at one another. She got him good a couple of times; he returned the favor a couple more. But instead of helping, each time she lashed out she only looked more frustrated, more upset, more frayed.

It was easy to forget, sometimes—even for him, who arguably knew her best—that behind the smiles and the diplomacy, behind the morale-boosting poker games and friendly check-ins, behind dropping everything to recover lost artifacts or finding out if fish lived in the Presidium lakes, was a woman who could take your head clean off your shoulders before you knew she was even within range.

He'd never seen her so furious.

He'd never seen her control waver like it was wavering now.

He slipped swiftly to the side, turned, and caught her hip when he'd been aiming for the small of her back. She still grunted, but instead of stopping to reevaluate, she turned around inside his guard and landed a flurry of relatively useless blows to his chest. Then, just as abruptly, she stopped, flattening her hands against him and bowing her head. Her breath caught, uneven.

"Why should I have to go down and hold Liara's hand while she sobs into her pillow? Her loss isn't worse than Vega's, than yours, than mine. Everyone on this ship has lost more than they thought it was possible to lose and still survive. Everyone." Shepard's shoulders rolled forward; he could see her visibly trying to gather herself together. He could see her failing. "Those… those _comments_ of hers when we were planetside. You heard. Like she didn't realize the whole damned galaxy had already gone to hell in the same damned handbasket she was finally witnessing with her own eyes." Neck still bowed, Shepard shook her head. "She brings me useless bits of broken conversations but can't tell me the asari are hiding a fucking _Prothean relic_ on Thessia? How can she intercept Anderson's email, but not have a clue the human councilor is planning a damned coup right in the heart of galactic civilization?"

He didn't say anything. She curled her fingers, dragging her blunt nails against the fabric of his shirt, bunching it between her palms. "Why should I care more about Thessia than I do about Earth? Palaven? The countless other worlds and lives lost before the asari fell? Why is Thessia supposed to count more? It doesn't." She finally raised her chin, and he wasn't sure if the calm of her expression filled him with terror or relief. "We failed on Thessia. I wish we hadn't. I hate being three steps behind, scrabbling to catch up. But if we'd known about that relic months ago, years ago, maybe we wouldn't be hurtling into the unknown praying for an eleventh hour reprieve that may or may not ever come. They held themselves above their own damned rules and we're all paying for that superiority. Every goddamned one of us. And they want me to cry for their loss? They want me to rend my clothes and tear my hair? No. No, Garrus. The asari made their bed."

He reached up and took her hands in his.

"And you know what pisses me off?" she continued, gazing over his shoulder. "I _do_ still care. I can't stop myself. I'm _so fucking angry_, and I'm _so fucking sad_, and I don't have time for this bullshit."

He bent his head, brow touching hers. He was close enough to hear the shuddering hitch in her breathing. Like she'd want him to, he pretended it was only because of their exertion. "They don't deserve you, Shepard. But I'm glad they have you."

Here, at last, her lips curved slightly. Then she pressed that little smile to his scarred mandible and said, "Wish we had time for that tie-breaker, but we'll be at Horizon soon. Duty calls. As usual."

"Maybe we'll get our answers there."

She shrugged, stepping away from him to slide into her jacket. He saw her clearly putting herself back together as she buttoned each button, and smoothed imaginary wrinkles from the unwrinkled fabric. "Not sure what answers we can expect from a refugee camp, but here's hoping."

As she passed him, heading for the stairs, she punched him lightly on the shoulder.

It was, he knew, her way of saying thank you.

"Here's hoping," he echoed.


	25. Yield

**Author's Note: For those familiar with it, the second part is a kind of epilogue to Life Signs. Like everything else, it should still stand alone, but Life Signs provides context.**

* * *

YIELD

He reached the restaurant early, and was already daydreaming about the cold drink he'd been looking forward to for hours when a flash of familiar blue in his peripheral vision made him pause. Ducking behind one of the restaurant's indoor shrubberies—privacy worked both ways—he glanced across the crowded tables and saw his parents already being seated by the asari hostess. Solana wasn't with them yet. His father held the chair out for his mother, bending to press his cheek to the top of her head once she was sitting. She tilted her head and flared her mandibles in a bright smile.

She didn't look sick. She didn't look like she was a dozen different treatments in, each less successful than the last. She didn't look like she was only on the Citadel for yet another of these expensive attempts to beat the unbeatable.

She just looked happy.

So did his father. It was strange enough to see him out of his C-Sec uniform; seeing him smiling was downright unnerving.

Garrus was too far away to hear their words, but he'd sat through enough boring surveillance details he could read their body language pretty easily. Made him feel like he was intruding. Maybe he was. Still, he couldn't bring himself to look away. His father said something and his mother laughed—this he could hear, since hers was the kind of laughter that filled a room and made others want to laugh with her, even if they didn't know the joke. His father reached for her hand, his laughter not loud enough to hear, but his expression as unguarded as Garrus had ever seen it.

He wondered what it felt like, that kind of connection.

"There a reason you're hiding in the foliage?"

Garrus jumped and turned in the same motion, but of course it was only Solana standing behind him, brow plates lifted and arms crossed over her chest. She looked… he wanted to say _better_ but the words that actually came to mind were _less messed up. _Like she was still putting herself back together, maybe. He knew if he asked she'd just tell him she was fine. Or to mind his own business. Like she'd done every other time he'd raised the question in the past couple of years.

To distract himself from how wrong it was that he hadn't actually seen his sister except on vid-calls for _years_, he gestured over his shoulder. Solana peeked around him. Her mandibles twitched into a brief smile.

"Nice to know it lasts sometimes," Solana said, still watching them. She sounded melancholy enough for Garrus to wonder if she was suffering from some unrequited crush, or love affair gone bad, but he didn't want to pry. They weren't close enough for that. Not anymore. If they ever had been.

When she rose from her observation, none of the misery he thought he'd heard showed in her expression. She tapped the side of her head, gesturing at the visor he wore. "Still working well?"

"Honestly? Don't know how I ever lived without it. Dad thinks it's cheating, of course. I had to file approximately eighty thousand forms to get clearance to wear it in the field." When she chuckled, Garrus added wryly, "Doubtless part of your nefarious plan to begin with."

"If it helps, I did actually look up C-Sec regs on non-standard equipment before I gave it to you. I knew it'd be a pain in the ass, but all the tech was above-board."

Garrus snorted. "Thank you for not sending me into work wearing illegal technology, Solana."

"Well. You did let me have the bed. And you made breakfast. I pay my debts."

"Hell," Garrus said, shaking his head, "that's a steep rate of return."

"You helped me out." She shrugged and then gestured toward the interior of the restaurant. "Should we?"

"Let's give them another minute. It won't be the same once we show up."

"Never is." She reached over and gave his hand a quick, impulsive squeeze. "I'm glad you're coming back with us for a while. All that overtime has to—" Garrus' gut twisted, and whatever showed in his expression tipped Solana off. "What a surprise," she said, not sounding surprised, and not sounding at all happy. "What is it this time?"

"Work."

"You've got to be kidding. You _promised_, Garrus. You said you had leave."

"I didn't think it was going to be a problem, but… my boss wants me on some big, classified case, Sol. I only got away for dinner because I promised to come in early tomorrow for the briefing. He… wasn't taking no for an answer."

Solana stepped away from him and crossed her arms again, mandibles pulled tight to her face and eyes sharp. "He wasn't _taking_ no? Or you didn't bother trying to say it in the first place?"

Exasperated, Garrus held his hands wide and gave a helpless little shrug. He wanted to pace, but stopped himself, certain the movement would draw too much attention. "You don't just say no to C-Sec's Executor."

Solana didn't look convinced. "I think it's pretty easy. You open your mouth and out falls a _single syllable._" Solana covered her face with one hand and took a long, deep breath. "She's going to be heartbroken. You coming home for a visit is all she's talked about for weeks."

"That's not fair. She knows better than anyone how quickly things change at C-Sec."

"Right," Solana said, "on good days. On bad ones, she wants to know where her husband is, her kids. You don't understand how much worse she is, G. You don't see her."

"And you do?"

"I applied for leave two months ago."

Garrus blinked. "But—she—that's not what she wants."

"You really don't know _anything_. She's worse now," Solana insisted. "A lot worse. And she's calmer for me than for the nurses. The research says that's important. Staying calm. It's—look, whatever. It's what I'm doing. It's the least I can do after all the crap I put her through for a while there." She took a step toward their parents' table, but Garrus reached out, grabbing her wrist.

"Don't say anything until after dinner," he pleaded. "Solana… just—"

"Fine," Solana said, subharmonics resonating with disgust. "Truce. But I'm doing it for her. Not for you." She turned sharply and poked Garrus in the chest hard enough to hurt. "Stop making promises you can't keep."

"Solana…"

But his sister had already shook herself free of his grip, and was heading toward the table. If she heard him, she pretended not to.

Damn Pallin and his _this is not a request, Vakarian_ and _you owe me after all the shit you've pulled_ anyway. "This case had better be worth it," he muttered under his breath, following Solana across the room, pretending to be cheerful.

#

No one talked about the _Valiant_. Not ever.

Afterward, though, Shepard wore her armor more often, even when she was only making her shipboard rounds. It was a different set, something clunky and bulky and not at all her, but her usual gear had gone down with that Reaper-tech-cursed ship. He thought it was to hide her lingering thinness. Perhaps it was even to build up strength, not that she'd shown anything like weakness on their ground missions since. Like their ordeal, it was something no one mentioned. Not even him. Not even when he was curled around her in her too-large bed, careful not to let his hands linger on ribs too distinct or hipbones too jutting.

Mentioning would be too much like remembering—_I'm going to lose her_—and neither of them wanted that.

By the time they'd taken down Kai Leng (satisfying) and turned back toward Earth, the armor had—he thought—merely become habit.

He was thinking about Earth, about Palaven, about his family being okay (for now; who knew how long it would last), when his comm beeped and Shepard said, "You have a minute?"

He blinked, surprised she hadn't just come to speak with him. "Sure," he said, "I'll be right up—"

"No, no. I'll come there. Just wanted to be sure I wasn't interrupting." Her words, and the tone of them, were harder to read without an expression to give him hints, so he only said he wouldn't go anywhere before terminating the call.

When she strode into the battery five minutes later, she wasn't wearing armor. Or any of her Alliance uniforms. The black shirt and pants weren't even marked by the ever-present N7 designation. She looked even less like herself dressed like this. He'd rather have seen the ugly armor. Hell, for a second he even thought he'd have preferred one of her old Cerberus getups.

"What's with the—"

Without preamble, she lifted her arm stiffly and gestured for him to take the datapad she held. "I'm not here as your commanding officer."

Before reading it, he asked, "What am I looking at?"

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. Her gaze didn't quite meet his. "Files the Shadow Broker kept on you."

Startled, he lowered the datapad. "What?"

"Not Liara. The… other one."

"I'm sure Liara keeps files on all of us, too, but that's not what I meant. Why now, Shepard? We hit the Shadow Broker months ago. A year."

She paced from one side of the battery to the other, hands linked loosely behind her back as though she didn't know exactly what to do with them. Her bare forearms were just muscle under skin, too-thin and too-wiry. He'd have doubted her ability to wield her Black Widow if he hadn't seen her do it. "We don't have secrets. This… felt like a secret."

He tossed the datapad aside and said, "I don't care what it says. I don't see how it can be relevant. I know you picked up intel on that base. I know you didn't like a lot of it. What, all the times I got written up during my C-Sec years? Lists of arrests I made? Kills?"

Lifting a hand, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Garrus—"

"Did it give you reason to doubt me? To question my loyalty?"

"No," she said quietly. "No. The opposite. I should have told you sooner. Don't know why I didn't. It's one thing to know Legion had a extranet gaming addiction, or Grunt was fascinated with dinosaurs. The other things—your things—weren't so… They were things I should only have known if you'd chosen to tell me. And some things I should never have known at all."

He frowned, trying to place why her concern seemed so oddly familiar. Her jumbled words back on the _Valiant_ as pain and hunger started to destroy her came back to him in a rush: _Maybe that damned dossier was right. Leadership potential overshadowed._ "Is this what you meant? When you talked about dossiers? Back on the—"

"Yeah," she interrupted. "It's the first thing in there. 'Former C-Sec officer. Exceptional tactical and team-building skills. Leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Unlikely to fully develop under Shepard's command.'"

Garrus couldn't help himself. He laughed. She stopped her pacing and turned wounded eyes his way. He shook his head, but swallowed the last of his mirth. Maybe it wasn't funny. She had the damned thing memorized, after all. "So the old Shadow Broker was full of shit, Shepard."

"Was he?"

"You've got to be kidding," he said, though it was clear from her expression she wasn't. "Unlikely to fully develop? Into _what_?"

She shook her head, wrapping her arms tight around herself.

"Shepard," he said, quietly, firmly, "I'm going to tell you something true."

And because he knew she still dreamed of her dead Gunnery Chief sometimes, dreamed of Mindoir or Elysium or Virmire like they were the reality and this the dream, she lifted her chin and gave him her full attention.

"I'm not here because I couldn't go anywhere else. I'm not here because I failed to be a captain or a cop or a vigilante or a Spectre. You opened a door for me three years ago, and I have never once regretted walking through it. It was still my choice." He stepped close to her, settling his hands on her shoulders. "Don't know where he got that information from and I don't care. At your six is where I want to be."

She bit her bottom lip, but her gaze on his was steady, unblinking. "If something happens to me, I trust you to—"

"No," he said. "If something happens to you, then something's already happened to me and there's no point saying what you're about to say."

For a moment she looked like she was going to argue with him, but then she only shook her head and said, "You know what I mean."

"Sure," he replied. "I'm choosing to ignore it. How's that for leadership potential?"

Her smile was faint, but present. That counted for something.

"So," he said, shifting until he stood beside her, one arm wrapped around her waist, "Grunt and dinosaurs?"

"Yeah," she agreed, leaning into him, almost sounding like herself again. "Also sharks."


	26. Zeitgeist

ZEITGEIST

Garrus was used to red tape.

He was used to paperwork and busywork and having to answer for every damned decision he made. He was used to pleading his case, and cutting corners because nothing would ever get done otherwise, and occasionally just outright skirting the rules because the alternative—like with that bastard Saleon—was so completely unacceptable.

Until Pallin set him on a case investigating the claims against Saren Arterius, he didn't know what real red tape, real obstruction of justice, looked like.

It was almost enough to make him understand why his father resented the Spectres—and their power—so much.

"I'm sorry, Officer Vakarian, that information is classified."

"This is a C-Sec investigation," Garrus repeated for the eighth time.

"And Saren Arterius is a Spectre, sir. The files you've requested are not available."

_It's not her fault_, Garrus told himself, looking for patience and really not finding much left, _she's just doing her job._

He wondered if his dad had ever stood before this same bland-faced asari, denied information he needed because of bureaucratic loopholes and untouchable Spectre status.

"Then can I look at the report on Nihlus Kryik's death?"

"That information is classified."

"The human ambassador wouldn't have involved Citadel Security without cause," Garrus pressed. "Are you sure you can't—"

"Classified, Officer Vakarian."

He glanced down at his notes, scanning for a name. "And this Alliance Commander? Shepard? I don't suppose you can give me anything on him? Her?"

"That information—"

"Oh, come _on_," Garrus snapped, bringing his fist down hard on the asari's desk.

She didn't blink, didn't flinch, only tilted her head like she was bored and sighed. "I will call security, Officer Vakarian."

"I am security," he retorted.

"In any case," she said, tone on the very clipped end of professional, "I wasn't going to say _classified_ in regards to information about Commander Shepard. She falls under Alliance jurisdiction, however, and considering the… delicacy of the case, I believe you ought to take your questions to them."

"You've got to be—fine. Thank you very much for your time."

Subharmonics or no subharmonics, he had no doubt the asari heard his sarcasm loud and clear. She did not, however, react to it. She merely smiled politely and said, "And I hope you have a pleasant day, Officer Vakarian."

He was halfway to the human embassy when his comm beeped and Pallin demanded his immediate presence at the Citadel Tower.

"Can it wait, sir? I'm following up a lead on the Arterius case—"

"There is no Arterius case, Vakarian. The Council hearing's going to start in half an hour. I told them we hadn't found anything substantial."

Rage, sudden and hot, brought Garrus to a complete halt so abruptly a human walking too closely behind him half-stumbled into him, half-bounced off his back.

"_What_?" Garrus lowered his voice when the same human groaned and scrambled backward. "Sir, I still have avenues of investigation I haven't exhausted. I'd like to speak with the Alliance. They had people on the ground. And I have a report out of Dr. Michel's clinic—"

"I don't care if you have Arterius himself on the other line. C-Sec's job here is done."

"C-Sec has barely scratched the surface. I'm the one to know. You expect me to work miracles with no clearance and every damned file even mentioning Saren's name bound up in more red tape than—"

"Did I miss the part where you make the calls now, Vakarian?" Pallin asked, each word sharp and direct as bullets shot at point-blank range. "Get your ass to the Citadel Tower. That's an order."

"Sir."

The second the comm went silent, Garrus snarled the most vicious curse he knew. The human, having just regained his feet, jumped at the ferocity and turned to face Garrus, his eyes showing white. Fear, then. He'd interrogated enough humans to know that much.

"Sorry," Garrus said, "bad day."

"You and me both," snapped the human. Then he shrugged, holding his hands wide and shaking his head. "Look, uh, I'm probably not supposed to—but I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. And the nature of your, uh, investigation."

Garrus crossed his arms over his chest. This time the human didn't flinch or cringe. Or fall over. He stuck out his hand in that strange human gesture of greeting. After a moment, Garrus unfolded his arms and accepted the smaller man's hand. The grip was firm and strong. For a human.

"My name's Crosby. Silas. Serve on the _Normandy_? That's the—"

"Yeah," Garrus said, "recognize the name from my notes. You know anything, Crosby?"

"No, sir. Well. Not really. Just gossip. Ship stuff. You know? Scuttlebutt."

Garrus nodded, counting how many minutes he could spare if he just ran the entire way to the Citadel Tower after Crosby said what he had to say.

"It's just… you should talk to Commander Shepard, if you can find her. She led the ground team on Eden Prime. Was pretty messed up after. Confined to the medbay. Think she definitely saw some things."

"Any idea where she is?"

The other side of the damned Citadel, probably, if his luck held.

"She and the captain were meeting the ambassador here. Or that's what I heard. Some kind of hearing? Top-secret, so everyone was talking about it."

Garrus nodded, thanking Crosby and glancing at the little clock readout on his visor. Twenty-two minutes. He could do that.

_There is no Arterius case, Pallin?_

Like hell there wasn't.

#

"No," Garrus said.

Alenko pushed a hand through hair already standing up in a dozen different directions. His uniform was wrinkled, and the light in the battery made him look tired. Even more tired. They were all so fucking tired. "Look, Garrus, I don't want to keep having this conversation—"

"Then stop bringing it up," Garrus snapped, unable to control the edge to his subharmonics that had only grown steadily more frayed since he woke in the medbay, half-convinced it was still after Omega and the gunship until Doctor Chakwas' expression told him he wasn't going to find Shepard up in the comm room waiting with a smile and a good-natured insult this time.

She wasn't even around for the inevitable joke about a Mako—a _Mako_ of all the damned things—taking him out of that final push.

_Come back alive._

"The crew needs the closure."

"The crew needs you to stop talking about its commander like she's dead."

Alenko flinched as if he'd been slapped. Garrus didn't care. Alenko had made the call while Garrus was in the medbay, bathed in medi-gel, out of his mind with pain, pleading to go back—Alenko had urged Joker to get out while Shepa—Alenko had sent them careening out of the Sol system, leaving her—

_If this thing goes sideways…_

No.

"No," Garrus repeated.

He had to be cold. Precise. He had to think in facts. Numbers. Lists. He'd mourn—

No.

He wasn't doing that.

"They found Anderson."

"Did they find _her_?" Garrus asked.

"Hackett says she and Anderson were together up there—"

_I don't think Hackett had any idea what he was sending me into, _she'd told him, after Aratoht. _Does he ever?_ he'd replied. She hadn't laughed. It hadn't been funny.

It sure as hell wasn't funny now.

"Did they find her?"

"The Citadel's a wreck. They probably won't ever—"

"Did they _find_ her?" Garrus repeated a final time, low, subharmonics so pained even a human ear had to pick up on it.

Alenko raised his chin, and Garrus could see the grief on the shorter man's face as clearly as he could hear it in his own subvocals. "She's dead, Garrus," Alenko said, each word like a blow.

No.

"Whatever that blast was, it was enough to blow out comms and relays across the entire galaxy. And she was at the center of it. You have to be reali—"

"I'm sorry," Garrus interrupted, "I didn't realize you were there."

Alenko's hands clenched into fists; he looked like he wanted to punch something. Maybe him. Fair enough. Let him try. "Do you think this is what I want? Do you think this makes me _happy_? I know better than anyone how much this—"

"No," Garrus said, turning away. _Don't turn your back._ "Plan your memorial if you want, but plan it for Anderson. He deserves the honor."

"So does she."

No.

"I have work to do if we're ever going to get off this rock."

"Dammit, Garrus, burying your head in the sand isn't going to change anything."

Head in the sand. He knew that one.

Maybe that's what he was doing.

Maybe not.

_Forgive the insubordination_, he'd said. He clenched his hands around the edge of his console until it creaked, until his bones ached with the pressure.

He heard Alenko leave.

Garrus thought about pain. Then he pushed that thought away and thought about survival instead.

_That's the ticket_, Shepard would have said.

_Ticket to what?_

_Elcor Hamlet, obviously. Or that hanar poetry reading…_

_This one feels like you disobeyed his order, Shepard._

And then he didn't want to imagine what she'd look like, or what she'd say. He didn't want her pity. Even in his imagination.

At the memorial, Joker put EDI's nameplate on the wall. Garrus held his tongue. He and Tali and Adams had ideas, but this Spirits-forsaken jungle on the edge of nowhere wasn't the place. Joker's hunched shoulders said it wasn't the time. Closure.

It was a horrible word. Garrus had never hated a word more.

Alenko hung Anderson's. He said a few words. Good words. Words about honor and duty and sacrifice. He looked at Garrus the whole time. Garrus stared back, unblinking, unflinching, and silently agreed they were the right words. For Anderson.

He wasn't sure who pressed the final nameplate into his hands. Not Tali. He didn't think it was Liara.

He took a few steps forward. Couldn't have said if it was because he meant to do what they wanted, or to get away from the anger still licking at his heels because they'd done exactly what he didn't want them to do. Reduced her to a hopeless little strip of metal to hang on a hopeless little strip of wall.

Instead of thinking about the burst of energy, or Alenko, or the Mako exploding and turning his armor into an oven, instead of thinking about goodbyes and the way Shepard's voice broke, he remembered the stupid smile on her face when she climbed out of the rubble of the Citadel Tower all those years ago.

He'd never been happier to see a damned smile.

He ran one hand over the smooth surface of the nameplate.

Wondered why the hell they hadn't bothered printing her full name.

Tilting his head, he tried to picture it up there. _Commander Shepard_. Next to Anderson. Williams. Mordin. Krios. Legion. The lost.

The dead.

No.

_When a good turian hears a bad order, he follows it. _

_When it comes down to it, Shepard, I don't think I'm a very good turian._

"No," he said, breaking the nameplate between his hands. It snapped with a sharp, brittle cry, too loud in the grim silence, and behind him someone gasped. This time it was Tali. Maybe Liara.

_Talk firing algorithms, big guy._

_Not this time, Shepard. This time I have to do what you would do._

So he talked hope.

Didn't come natural. Didn't come easy.

But he kept on talking, because they needed him to.


End file.
